Freed Chibok girls want FG to free non-school girls in B’Haram’s ‘forest of sorrow’

The Chibok Secondary School girls released in May 2017 by Boko Haram terrorists have bemoaned the situation of several non-school girls in the captivity of the insurgent group in the Sambisa Forest.

The girls have, therefore, called on the Federal Government to also pay attention to those non-school girls who are lavishing in Sambisa Forest which they described as “a place of sorrow”.

The former abducted school girls stated this when they interacted with newsmen during a special luncheon organised by the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development in Abuja on Saturday.

The girls spoke through their leader, Miss Hauwa Ntakai. Noting that the Federal Government focused greater attention to their (Chibok Secondary Schoolgirls) release because they were captured inside their college, she lamented that many of their sisters who are non-school girls have been languishing in Boko Haram captivity.

“We have many of our sisters there that are not students of any school and nobody talks about them. It is because we were abducted from a school that government talked to Boko Haram and they released us. We thank them (government) very much, we appreciate them. May the Lord bless them for what they have done,” she said.
Ntakai revealed during the interaction that her ambition is to study law and that she okay staying in the care of the Federal Government since her parents are allowed to come and visit her.

“I am one of the 82 Chibok girls that were released from Sambisa. I want to study law, I am feeling good because my parents can come and visit me. We thank them (government) a lot for what they have done because without them, we will not be released from Sambisa,” she said.

Read also: After several claims, Army chief Buratai gives commander deadline to capture Shekau

Ntakai wants the Federal Government to also try and negotiate with the insurgent group for the freedom of other girls, school and non-school girls, “because that forest (Sambisa) is a place of sorrow,” she said.
The girls were the 82 released after the Federal Government’s successful negotiation with the notorious sect.
Earlier the current administration had also released about 20 of the girls through negotiation with the terrorist group.

No less than 276 of the school girls were abducted on April 14, 2014 from their school in Chibok, a town in Borno State. Many of them are still in captivity.

Though considerably weakened, Boko Haram has remained potent in Nigeria’s North East, hitting soft targets often in desperate attempts to prove that the group remains active. Recently, it abducted 7 women believed to members of the Nigeria Police prompting the Chief of Army Staff, Buratai, to issue directives for the capture of the supposed sect leader, Shekau.

 

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