SAN FRANCISCO, August 22, (THEWILL) – The peaceful procession embarked upon by members of the Bring Back Our Girls, BBOG advocacy group and people from Chibok community resident in Abuja was on Monday halted at the Independence Avenue, Abuja, by a combined team of operatives from the Police and the Department of State Services, DSS.
The protesters expressed regrets voting for President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 presidential election at the rally staged over the inability of government to take measures that will lead to the rescue of the over 200 missing school girls kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist group from their school in Chibok, Borno State, in 2014.
Clad in red shirts and armed with placards, they had taken off from the Unity Fountain, Maitama, with the aim of seeing President Muhammadu Buhari to demand an update on efforts to free the abducted Chibok girls.
However, on getting to the Independence Avenue which leads to Aso Rock, about 60 security agents formed a barricade, effectively preventing the protesters from proceeding.
Last week, the Boko Haram sect had released a video of the girls who are still alive and said they were willing to trade the girls in exchange for their members in detention in various prisons.
One of the girls, Maida Yakubu, who also spoke in the video, asked their parents to beg the Nigerian government to accede to the demand of Boko Haram so that they would be released.
Chairman of the Chibok Community, Hosea Tsambido, who spoke during the protest on Monday, stated that members of the Community and BBOG voted massively for Buhari as against his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, who they voted for in 2011, stressing that “We regret our votes. We regret it.”
Tsambido, who stated that “they tell us that our girls seen in the latest video was merely an arrangement,” disclosed that “no one has spoken to the family of any of the Chibok girls since the last video was released, by the terrorists.”
The community leader further disclosed that, “We were promised that the president would visit Sambisa, after becoming president. We were also told that within two weeks our girls would be rescued.
“But over one year now, there is no tangible statement about our girls. The presidency has stated instead that it is confused.”
