Borno state Governor,
Kashim Shettima says that the Bring back Our Girls Group (BBOG) has never
taken out time to visit Chibok community.
Shettima stated this
when Minister of women Affairs, Aisha Jumai Alhassan paid him a courtesy
visit at the government house Maiduguri on Friday. Shettima said
the protests could be seen as politically motivated since none of the
members of the group has deemed it fit to visit the affected community.
"Just last week, we expended a whooping sum of N25 million first
tranche for the education of the 56 Chibok school girls that escaped
from the crunches of Boko Haram and none of the members of BBOG has
visited Chibok to know about the feelings of the parents of the girls.
They do not know what our people are going through. It is easy
to talk but it is very difficult to work the talk. They can make a whole
lot of noise from the cozy comfort of Abuja, they can dramatize the
whole thing. Some of them are former minister of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria and they know the protocol to follow before seeing the
President, but they just wanted to create some drama.
"Believe
me, we are making efforts to take care of the parents of the abducted
Chibok girls and we are making efforts to educate the Chibok girls who
escaped from the crunches of the Boko Haram. Majority of victims
of Boko Haram are women and children. In Maiduguri, the capital city of
Borno state, we have over 39,000 orphans and in Monguno local
government area of the state, we have over 38000 of them and the same
applies to other parts of the state. And yet no group or pressure group
nor characters in the social media cares to know about this.
"It
is our responsibility to take care of these widows and orphans or there
would be a repetition of the circle in the next ten to twenty years. As
communities are liberated from Boko Haram, those people that were
held hostages by insurgents; those people that were used as human shield
by the insurgents tend to cascade down to the nearest IDP camp and any
time we get such people most of them come in a very bad shape. In spite
of these challenges we are poised to rewrite the history and
change the narrative but definitely you would hear very fantastic and
funny stories which would sometimes amuse you and sometimes irritate you
because there are politics involved; there is a local, national and
international politics involved in all this melodrama that we are
witnessing. It is very sad because our people are at the receiving end
and some people are smiling to the bank on the agony of our people",
Shettima said.
Shettima appealed to the Minister to partner Borno
state government in addressing some of the challenges facing women and
children in the state through her ministry.
Responding, the
Federal Minister of women Affairs, Hajiya Aisha Jumai Alhassan
congratulated Governor kashim Shettima for his courage in steering the
affairs of the state despite the security challenges and thanked him for
the warm reception accorded to her and her entourage.
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