11 Chibok Girls’ Parents Die …As Jonathan, Mark Meet Others, 51 Escapee Girls

Nearly a dozen parents of the more than 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls will never see their daughters again.
Since the mass abduction of the schoolgirls by Islamic extremists three months ago, at least 11 of their parents have died and their hometown, Chibok, is under siege from the militants, residents report.
Seven fathers of kidnapped girls were among 51 bodies brought to Chibok hospital after an attack on the nearby village of Kautakari this month, said a health worker who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals by the extremists.
At least four more parents have died of heart failure, high blood pressure and other illnesses that the community blames on trauma due to the mass abduction 100 days ago, said community leader Pogu Bitrus, who provided their names.
“One father of two of the girls kidnapped just went into a kind of coma and kept repeating the names of his daughters, until life left him,” said Bitrus.
Meanwhile, ninety-nine days after their children and wards were abducted in a midnight raid on the Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State on April 14, President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday met with parents of the girls.
Journalists were barred from covering the meeting which was held inside the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
That was contrary to a statement released last week by the Presidency, saying the parley would be “open to the media for coverage by Nigerian and international press.”
Those who attended the meeting included 51 girls who escaped from their abductors, including their principal, parents of escaped girls, parents of the girls still in captivity, opinion and community leaders from Chibok as well as officials of the Borno State Government.
They were conveyed to and from the venue in four red luxury buses belonging to the Abuja Urban Mass Transport Company Limited amidst tight security provided by a combined team of men of the Department of State Security and armed policemen.
The security operatives shielded them from journalists before and after the meeting that lasted about three hours.
The venue wore a sombre look with the escaped girls who looked traumatised being the cynosure of all eyes.
The meeting started with the arrival of President Jonathan, who was joined at the meeting by the President of the Senate, David Mark; Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State; Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State; members of the Federal Executive Council as well as security chiefs, among others.
Immediately the meeting commenced at about 11.20am, journalists were asked to leave the venue.
The doors were only re-opened for journalists shortly after the President had made his closing remarks only for photojournalists to capture him in a group photograph with the escaped girls.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, later told State House correspondents that the meeting was an interactive session during which the President had the opportunity to listen first-hand to the various categories of persons.
Abati described the meeting as a successful event and a good development because the President had always been looking forward to such an opportunity, having met with other stakeholders on the matter before then.
The presidential spokesman said, “Statements were made by all the representatives of people. They spoke their minds and conveyed their feelings to the President.
“The girls who escaped also gave an account of what they went through. Mr. President reassured them of the Federal Government’s determination and his own personal determination to ensure that the girls that are still in captivity are brought out alive.
“That is the main objective of the government. Mr. President also used the opportunity to empathise with the parents and the girls, and to reassure them that everything will be done to make things easier for them, especially those who have escaped and the ones that will also be rescued, that their education will not in any way suffer, and he is convinced that evil will never prevail over good.
“Mr. President further assured them that after the battle has been won and the girls are brought back home, he, together with the parents and the state government will focus on development, on building Chibok, on building all that the terrorists had destroyed and on ensuring that every child, either in Chibok or in any other part of the country, has his/her dream realised.
“At the end of the meeting, the parents are happy. Everybody is in high spirit.”
Abati added that Jonathan told the gathering that government would ensure that the girls’ education is not truncated.
To this end, he said efforts were being made to place the escaped girls in other schools.
He said Jonathan urged them not to be afraid about their future because everything would be done to protect their right to education.
On media reports that most of the real parents of the abducted girls were not part of the meeting, Abati said the parents who attended made it clear that they are representatives of other parents.
He said over 200 people attended the meeting from Chibok.
“The girls spoke in great details about their experiences and their observations. It was an open and frank session in which everybody expressed their minds,” he concluded.
The much anticipated meeting comes amid reports of a worsening security crisis in the North-East, where Islamists have occupied the town of Damboa and surrounding areas, with the military so far unable to chase them out.
Jonathan’s handling of the hostage crisis has been fiercely criticised, including his failure to visit Chibok to console parents whose daughters are among the hostages.
His office tried to organise a meeting in the capital last week with a small group of the affected families, after he was urged to do so by the Pakistani child-rights activist, Malala Yousafzai.
Malala, who survived a Taliban assassination attempt in 2012, was in Abuja on her 17th birthday to campaign for the girls’ release.
The families balked at the invitation, saying that if Jonathan was unwilling to travel to Chibok, he should bring all of the relatives to his office to meet with them as a group.
Reports indicate that parents of 11 of the abducted girls have died since their abduction by the Boko Haram group.
Four of the parents of the abducted girls had died of heart failure, high blood pressure and other illnesses, blamed on the trauma caused by the abduction.
It was also learnt that seven parents of the students were killed during a raid by Boko Haram on Kautakari, a village close to Chibok early in July.
The insurgent group has offered to release the over 200 girls in its custody in exchange for its members, a request which the Federal Government has so far rejected.
Ayuba Chibok, who has two nieces among the hostages, told newsmen that the government chartered a plane from Yola, Adamawa State to fly the group to Abuja on Monday.
It would be recalled that the hostages’ plight attracted worldwide attention following the social media and protest campaign called #BringBackOurGirls, which was backed by prominent personalities ranging from United States First Lady, Michelle Obama to the popular Hollywood actress, Angelina Jolie.
Western powers, including the US, have offered logistic and military support to Nigeria’s rescue effort, but there have been few signs of progress so far, despite assurances from Federal Government officials that the crisis would soon be resolved.
However, Boko Haram, blamed for killing more than 10,000 people in a five-year insurgency, has rampaged across parts of Borno in recent days with little resistance from the military.
An attack that began last Thursday and continued through the weekend displaced more than 15,000 people, and is believed to have killed scores in Damboa.
“The insurgents are still in control of Damboa,” said Kabiru Ali, a member of the vigilante force in the town who was forced to flee by the Islamist onslaught. They have “hoisted their flags,” he added.
There are reports that the Islamists have in some areas sought to establish themselves as the local authority, but the picture remains unclear with terrible phone reception in many of the affected areas.
But the military has assured that it would soon flush out the extremists, denying the claim that the insurgents had hoisted their flag in Damboa.
“We are not conceding any portion of this country to any terrorist group,” defence spokesman, Brigadier-General Chris Olukolade said.

L-R: Commander, 2 Brigade, Nigerian Army, Brig.-Gen Osasogie Uzamere, Commissioner of Police, Rivers, Mr Tunde Ogunsakin and Controller of Prison, Rivers,Mr Patrick Ondoma, during Inter-Agency Consultative Committee meeting on Election Security in Port Harcourt, yesterday .