Ninety-nine days after their children and wards were abducted in a midnight raid on their school, President Goodluck Jonathan, on Tuesday met with parents of the girls abducted from Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State on April 14.
Journalists were barred from covering the meeting which was held inside the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
That was contrary to a verbal expression relinquished last week by the Presidency, verbally expressing the parley would be “open to the media for coverage by Nigerian and international press.”
Those who attended the meeting included 51 girls who eluded from their abductors including their principal, parents of eluded girls, parents of the girls still in captivity, opinion and community bellwethers from Chibok as well as officials of the Borno State Government.
They were conveyed to and from the venue in four red luxury buses belonging to the Abuja Urban Mass Transport Company Limited amidst tight security provided by a amalgamated team of men of the Department of State Security and armed policemen.
The security operatives shielded them from journalists afore and after the meeting that lasted about three hours.
The venue wore a somber look with the eluded girls who looked traumatised being the cynosure of all ocular perceivers.
The meeting commenced with the advent of Jonathan who was joined at the meeting by the President of the Senate, David Mark; Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State; Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State; members of the Federal Executive Council as well as security chiefs among others.
Immediately the meeting commenced at about 11.20am, journalists were asked to leave the venue.
The doors were only re-opened for journalists shortly after the President had made his closing remarks only for photojournalists to capture him in a group photograph with the eluded girls.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, later told State House correspondents that the meeting was an interactive session during which the President had the opportunity to heedfully aurally perceive first-hand to the sundry categories of persons.
Abati described the meeting as a prosperous event and a good development because the President had always been looking forward to such an opportunity, having met with other stakeholders on the matter afore then.
The presidential spokesman verbalized, “Statements were made by all the representatives of people. They verbalized their minds and conveyed their feelings to the President.
“The girls who eluded additionally gave an account of what they went through. Mr. President reassured them of the Federal Government’s resoluteness and his own personal resoluteness to ascertain that the girls that are still in captivity are brought out alive.
“That is the main objective of the regime. Mr. President withal utilized the opportunity to empathise with the parents and the girls and to reassure them that everything will be done to make things more facile for them, especially those who have eluded and the ones that will withal be rescued, that their edification will not in anyway suffer and he is convinced that evil will never prevail over good.
“Mr. President further assured them that after the battle has been won and the girls are brought back home, he, together with the parents and the state regime will fixate on development, on building Chibok, on building all that the terrorists had eradicated and on ascertaining that every child, either in Chibok or in any other part of the country, has his/her dream realised.
“At the cessation of the meeting, the parents are jubilant. Everybody is in high spirit.”
Abati integrated that Jonathan told the accumulation that regime would ascertain that the girls’ eduction is not truncated.
To this end, he verbally expressed efforts were being made to place the eluded girls in other schools.
He verbally expressed Jonathan urged them not to be trepidacious about their future because everything would be done to bulwark their right to edification.
On media reports that most of the authentic parents of the abducted girls were not a component of the meeting, Abati verbally expressed the parents who attended made it clear that they are representatives of other parents.
He verbalized over 200 people attended the meeting from Chibok.
“The girls verbalized in great details about their experiences and their observations. It was an open and frank session in which everybody expressed their minds,” he concluded.
