Chibok girls: CACOL reiterates calls for their release, tasks Buhari

The Centre for Anti-Corruption
and Open Leadership, CACOL, has
called on the President
Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal
Government to leave no stone
unturned in securing the release of the Chibok girls who were
kidnapped on the night of 15th of
April, 2014, including the
kidnapped Leah Sharibu and
others still in the captivity of Boko
Haram insurgents.

This demand was contained in a
release issued to DAILY POST on
Saturday by the Centre’s
executive chairman, Mr. Debo
Adeniran.

He said: “Those girls have not
been secured completely because
of the lack of adequate will to
explore all necessary processes
required to bring back the girls.
There is inadequate intelligence, commitment and funding of those
cognate forces required to
achieve the feat.

“All of these observed
inadequacies combine to elongate
the confinement of these hapless
ladies (since they could no longer
be referenced as girls, no more,
because if they had been allowed fertile access to their education,
many of them would have
completed their service year
now, as they were preparing for
their final West African Senior
School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) during their abduction
some five years ago). It is
therefore appropriate to imply
that some of them would have
finished their University
education and 1 year compulsory service to their nation, had the
situation been different.”

CACOL said that though, successive
governments have been paying
lip service regarding efforts to
bring the girls back, their parents
and the generality of Nigerians
need to be constantly kept abreast of proof of life for as
many as still possible amongst
them, their location, and
whatever fate has befallen them,
from time to time.

According to the group, this was
the only acceptable response of a
deserving government. It added that “This much would
not have been difficult, if there
had been an effective intelligence
and cooperative endeavor with
neighboring countries, like Chad,
Cameroon, Niger and any other places, where these insurgents
have made their focus of
activities.”

It maintained that the Federal
Government has to demonstrate
greater political will and put in
more workable strategies and
effective cooperative endeavours,
with neighboring countries to achieve tangible outcomes that
should be patently evident.

On Leah Sharibu, the abducted
Dapchi schoolgirl, CACOL said, “It
is just not enough for the
government to keep on
reassuring Nigerians that Leah is
alive and well, but that extra efforts must be made to secure
her release, in view of the fact
that those abducted
simultaneously with her had since
regained their freedom on the
intervention of the state while she is still in captivity due to her
conscientious objection as an
avowed adherent of her religious
conviction.

“We therefore, advise that, the
Buhari-led administration should
take a step further, by stamping
its foot in the sands of time
through a complete overhaul of
the security architecture of Nigeria in a way that reinforces
the sacredness of lives and
properties of all Nigerians and
make provisions of their social
welfare a thing of primary
concern to the government rather than illicit accumulation of
commonwealth by those
entrusted with power.”

Source: https://dailypost.ng/2019/04/20/chibok-girls-cacol-reiterates-calls-release-tasks-buhari/