…We better your administration’s handling of Chibok abduction–APC
The release of 105 schoolgirls out of 110 abducted by Boko Haram insurgents from their hostels at Government Girls Science and Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, Yobe State on February 19, 2018 and the return of 105 of them on March 21, 2018 is one development that has attracted diverse reactions.
While the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) believes that the kidnap and release of the girls might have been stag-managed by “certain officials in the presidency” for political purposes, the All Progressives Congress (APC) accused the former of not acting fast when 271 schoolgirls were whisked away by Boko Haram terrorists from a government school in Borno State in 2014.
Speaking at a press conference in Abuja, the national chairman of PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, said Nigerians deserve to know how the students were kidnapped and the circumstances of their release.
“The government had set up an investigative committee. We challenge them to release the report on how they were kidnapped. The mystery surrounding how they were abducted and also released is another issue, which government should explain, whether it was pre-determined, nobody knows,” he said.
He said there is the need for the government to release the investigation report “because there are doubts here and there. Whether there were conspiracies to get them out and bring them after, to earn some reputation, nobody knows.”
“As we challenge the APC government to release the report, we also ask that never again should this type of thing happen in our country, where for purpose of boosting profile of this failed government or whatever the purpose may be that security left Dapchi school and immediately they left the girls were kidnapped.
“Well, the government said they negotiated for it, but we charge the APC failed government to also negotiate for the release of the remaining Chibok girls. All these things happening are strange, never happened before. It seems to me that the centre can no longer hold. This APC government is broken.”
Also the party’s national publicity secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, described the abduction and release of the girls as a “wicked” and callous act.”
Ologbondiyan condemned what he described as a calculated attempt to torment and “use innocent schoolgirls as pawns in an ignoble script that was designed to hoodwink Nigerians and orchestrate a great rescue.”
“Nigerians know that the main aim of this devilish act was to delude the public, set the stage for an orchestrated rescue, create a heroic myth and false sense of achievement around the APC administration and serve as a spur for President Muhammadu Buhari’s declaration to contest the 2019 presidential election, perhaps in the coming weeks.
“As a political party, we want to further state unequivocally that by all ramifications, this is a war crime against humanity and gross violation of human rights on the part of the APC administration, all in the bid to push a selfish and ill-lucked 2019 ambition,” he said.
In his reaction, the governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayo Fayose said the episode was a well-orchestrated plot by the federal government to dupe and swindle Nigerians.
Fayose who took to his twitter handle to express his thought on the matter queried why neither the army nor the police was on the ground when the Boko Haram entered Dapchi community to kidnap as well as when they returned the girls.
The governor felicitated with the parents of the freed girls said: “The abduction of the girls is an indictment on the FG & their release is no doubt a drama scripted by the government and its agents to swindle Nigerians.
“Is it not strange that the girls could be brought back to Dapchi by their abductors without the security agents knowing when they were returned and who returned them?”
However, the national publicity secretary of APC, Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi described the release of the students as “solid demonstration of the political will of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to secure the lives of all Nigerians.”
“With this prompt release of the Dapchi girls, the APC government has demonstrated how government should respond to such situations. If the immediate-past Peoples Democratic Party administration had responded with similar alacrity, the Chibok schoolgirls would have been released or rescued,” he said.
The Christian Association of Nigeria also expressed hope that the remaining Chibok girls in Boko Haram captivity would be released.
“It is unfortunate that it was after the abduction that security forces went to the Dapchi school. We hope that following the release of the Dapchi girls, other girls in Boko Haram captivity would also be released,” said CAN.
