FOR the umpteenth time, President Goodluck Jonathan promised yesterday to rescue the 219 Chibok schoolgirls in Boko Haram’s custody —more than 90 days after their abduction.
Dr. Jonathan also dismissed the insinuation that the government had done little to rescue the girls.
The President spoke during the visit of Malala Yousafzai, the teenage Pakistani girl-child education campaigner, to the Aso Villa, Abuja.
The President explained to Malala, who was accompanied by her father and other members of her Foundation, that the Federal Government’s efforts were constrained by the overriding imperative of ensuring that the girls’ lives are not endangered in any rescue attempt.
He said: “Terror is relatively new here and dealing with it has its challenges. The great challenge in rescuing the Chibok girls is the need to ensure that they are rescued alive.”
According to him, the Federal Government and its security agencies are very mindful of the need to avoid the scenario in rescue attempts in other parts of the world where lives of abductees were lost in the effort to rescue them.
“The time it is taking to achieve that objective is not a question of the competence of the Nigerian Government. We have had teams from the United States, Britain, France, Israel and other friendly nations working with us here on the rescue effort and they all appreciate the challenges and the need to tread carefully to achieve our purpose,” he said.
Jonathan said that he would meet with the parents of the abducted girls before they leave Abuja to personally comfort them and reassure them that the Federal Government was doing all within its powers to rescue their daughters.
He reiterated his administration’s commitment to ensuring the safe and proper education of all children.
He said: “I personally believe that since about 50 per cent of our population is female, we will be depriving ourselves of half of our available human resources if we fail to educate our girls adequately or suppress their ambitions in any way.
“We are, therefore, taking steps to curb all forms of discrimination against girls and women, and have also undertaken many affirmative actions on their behalf.”
The President said that the Federal Government was also proactively evolving and implementing policies and measures that will benefit the abducted Chibok girls when they are safely rescued, as well as others that have been adversely affected by the Boko Haram insurgency.
These, President Jonathan said, includ the establishment of a Victims’ Support Fund, the Safe Schools Initiative and the Presidential Initiative for the North East.”
He said he would inaugurate tomorrow a National Committee to oversee fundraising for the Victims’ Support Fund, which will also cater for families of security men and women who have died in the war against terrorism.
Malala, who was shot by Taliban three years ago for campaigning for girls’ education, speaking at a news conference after her meeting with the President, said Jonathan assured her that everything was being done to ensure the safe release of the girls.
According to her, the annual budgetary allocation to education in Nigeria is too meager.
The Director of Communication of Malala Foundation, Eason Jordan, said Jonathan also promised to ensure scholarship for all the girls. Malala pledged to support the scholarship with $200,000.
Malala said: “I am here in Nigeria on my 17th birthday for a price which is to see that every child goes to school. This year, my objective is to speak up for my Nigerian sisters, about 200 of them who are under the abduction of Boko Haram and I met the President, Goodluck Jonathan, for this purpose.
“I convey the voice of my sisters who are out of school or who are still under the abduction of Boko Haram. And for those girls who escaped from the abduction but still do not have education. And in the meeting, I highlighted the same issues which the girls and their parents told me in the past two days.
“The parents said they really want to meet with the President to share their stories with him. And I asked the President that if he wants to meet with the parents of the girls, the President assured me that he would meet with them.”
She went on: “I spoke to the President about the girls who complained that they cannot go to school despite the fact that they want to become doctors, engineers and teachers. But the government is not providing them any facility. They also need health facility, security, and the government is not doing anything.
“These are the issues I presented to the President today. And the President fortunately, promised me that he will do something for these girls and he promised me that the girls under the abduction of Boko Haram will be released as soon as possible.
“This is the promise the President made and I am hopeful that his promise will come through and we will soon see those girls return. He has made promises, but in politics, nothing is clear. But the President said these girls are his daughters and he is pained by their suffering and that he has his own daughters and he can feel what they are feeling.”
“The President has expressed his solidarity with those girls and his sadness. He has assured that these girls will come back home safely. He has several options but that he will choose the best to ensure the girls are released safely.”
“Yesterday I also met with the parents of these girls who are still under the abduction of Boko Haram and they were crying and hopeless.
“But still, they have this hope that there is still someone who can help them. They asked me if there is any chance for them to meet the President because at this time, they need the President’s support, so I asked the President if it is possible for him to go and see them to encourage them and the President did promise me that he will meet the parents of these girls.”
Continuing, she said: “I am hopeful that these two promises – the return of the girls from Boko Haram and meeting with their parents – will be fulfilled and we will see it soon. Even though the promises have been made, it does not mean I am going to stop talking. I will be counting days and I will be looking when those girls are going to be returned home. I can’t stop this campaign until I see those girls return back to their families and continue the agitation.
“This is the position of the Malala foundation. My father and I and the entire family want to speak out for those 10.5 million children who are out of school. They have no access to education because of many problems. And I am hopeful that the international community will take serious action because if we think this country is in Africa and is not going to affect other countries, we are really wrong.”
According to her, if the 10.5 million children are left to be illiterates, there is a risk that they will become terrorists; they could be violated and deprived of their basic human rights.
Minister of State for Education Nyesom Wike, during his meeting with Malala, said: “From present efforts on ground, we hope to reduce the number of children who are out of school by at least two million pupils by the beginning of the 2015 academic session, by September next year. This is a pledge we make and we are committed to the realization of this goal”.
He said that the Jonathan administration was working hard to address years of neglect suffered by education, through increased budgetary allocation, special programmes and projects and key interventionist programmes.Wike assured the international community that the Safe School Initiative was in place, with the Federal Government and states collaborating to ensure that children learn under a conducive environment.
