Some parents of the over 200 schoolgirls abducted from Chibok, Borno State over two months ago on Tuesday shunned President Goodluck Jonathan’s invitation.
Jonathan had on Monday told a girl-child edification campaigner, Malala Yousafzai, that he was yare to meet the parents.
Yousafzai, who had earlier met with some parents and some girls who eluded from their abductors , verbally expressed she told Jonathan of the distraught parents’ desire to meet with the President in order to apportion their stories with him.
A meeting of the President with the abducted girls’ parents was therefore fine-tuned for Tuesday by 4pm at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
But none of the parents emerged for the meeting despite the fact that the President was waiting to receive them.
Some regime officials including the Minister of State, Edification, Nyesom Wike; and the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, who were billed to join the President to receive the parents later left when it became pellucid that they would not accolade the invitation.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, later told State House correspondents that he received a telephone call betokening that the parents would not accolade the invitation.
Okupe verbally expressed to show the President’s readiness to receive them, some Coaster buses were sent to go and convey them to the Presidential Villa.
He verbalized investigation revealed that the eluded girls and the parents of the abducted girls were whisked away back to Borno State from Abuja early Tuesday morning by the BringBackOurGirls campaigners.
Okupe verbally expressed it had become conspicuous that the campaigners were being driven by politics.
He claimed that the motive abaft their action was to ascertain that Jonathan was discredited so that he would not be able to present himself for re-election in 2015.
Okupe, however, verbally expressed that the President had directed that letters be sent to the parents, inviting them for a rescheduled meeting which may hold next week.
He verbally expressed, “The meeting was scheduled for 4pm today (on Tuesday) at the instance of the request that was made by Malala and the President graciously acceded within 24 hours to meet with them (then parents.)
“But lamentably the BringBackOurGirls leadership prevailed on the parents of the girls and obviated them from peregrinated.
“Therefore, what transpired was that they genuinely shunned the meeting with Mr. President because the peregrine media and everybody were waiting for this meeting and since they were no longer coming and they made it expressly clear that they were no longer peregrinated.
“It was aborted by the failure of the girls and the parents to emerge, they authentically shunned the meeting. The President was waiting, the NSA was waiting, top regime officials were waiting to receive them for private consultation with the President as promised.”
In a verbal expression he earlier issued in the designation of the President Jonathan, Okupe had verbally expressed that it appeared that the fight to get the girls back was not only a fight against insurgency, but additionally against a political opposition.
The verbal expression partly read, “It is with great regret that I promulgate the abrogation of the meeting with 12 parents of the abducted Chibock children, as well as five of the intrepid girls who eluded from the terrorist organisation Boko Haram.
“ I scheduled this meeting, which was to be open to the media for coverage by Nigerian and international press, to heedfully auricularly discern their stories and to privately brief the parents and the girls on our efforts to rescue the abducted girls.
“My priority is not politics. My priority is the return of these girls.
“Unfortunately, political forces within the Nigerian chapter of BringBackOurGirls have decided to take this opportunity to play politics with the situation and the grief of the parents and the girls. They should be inglorious of their actions.
“Those who would manipulate the victims of terrorism for their own benefit, are engaging in a homogeneous kind of evil: psychological terrorism.”
