Chibok girls' release my priority –Jonathan

►Jonathan said that the release of the over 200 abducted School girls, was a priority dear to his heart.
►He however, warned members of the opposition to stop politicizing the abduction saga.

PRESIDENT  Goodluck Jonathan said yesterday that the release of the over 200 abducted students of

Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State, was a priority dear to his heart.

This came on a day the march to the Presidential Villa by #BringBackOurGirls, BBOG family was disrupted by heavily armed anti-riot police men, as all the roads leading to the villa in Abuja were blocked.

The Federal Government also, yesterday, sharply disagreed with former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, over a statement credited to him that the “Chibok girls may never return.”

President Jonathan, however, warned members of the opposition to stop politicizing the abduction saga and join forces with his government to rescue the girls.

Jonathan made the declaration at the National Conference on Environmental Security, Awareness and Enforcement in Nigeria, organized by the House of Representatives Committee on Environment at Transcorp Hilton,Abuja.

The confab was attended by Service Chiefs, security experts and environmentalists.

Although he did not give any time frame for the rescue of the girls or what his government was doing to address the problem, President Jonathan, who was represented by the Minister of Environment, Mrs Laurentia Mallam, assured that he would leave no stone unturned to ensure that the girls breathe air of freedom.

He said:   “As an elected official, I want to solve the problem of the Chibok Girls. It is a priority on my-to-do list as President

“I refuse to pass it onto somebody else. Our security interests will not permit us to withhold legitimate actions that will bring back the girls. Our institutions won’t allow it either. And neither should our conscience”.

Urging members of the Boko Haram sect who abducted the female students in April to release them unconditionally, President Jonathan commended the BringBackOurGirls group for mounting intense pressure on the government for release of the students.

He however, admitted that rescuing the girls would not be easy but reassured that his government was taking every legal measure to get them out of the claws of the insurgents.

The President said further:   “Clearly, this moment demands that the insurgents lay down their arms; it demands the unconditional release of our abducted Chibok girls.

“I agree with the BringBackOurGirls Campaigners, especially for piling up pressure on us on the issue. But, there are no neat or easy answers to bringing back the girls. I wish there were. But I can tell you that the wrong answer is to pretend like this problem will go away if we maintain an unsustainable status quo and silence.”

The role of the opposition, the President insisted, must not be to throw tantrums at government and undermine the efforts of the security but work with his administration not only to rescue the abducted girls but also end insurgency in the country.

“I seize this opportunity to call on the opposition to quit politicization of the abduction saga and join me to solve the problem together,” he said.

The President commended the strategies so far adopted by security agencies in combating terrorism and other security challenges.

He also promised that his administration would not disappoint Nigerians in fixing the current security challenges and other problems facing the nation, and called on every Nigerian to support his government to achieve the feat.

However, the march to the Presidential Villa by #BringBackOurGirls, BBOG,  Abuja family, was yesterday, disrupted by heavily armed anti riot police men, as all the roads leading to villa in Abuja were blocked.

The protesters, stopped by armed anti-riot policemen, were prevented from entering the villa from Yakubu Gowon crescent, Asokoro.

The anti riot police didn’t allow most of the protesters to join the protest as they blocked the road from the three arms zones to Police headquarters junctions.

Both vehicular and people walking to enter the Yakubu Gowon crescent, which was the take-off point, were also disallowed.

The protest, which started around 3pm, was later addressed by the Minister of Women Affairs, Hajia Zanaib Maina, who represented President Jonathan, saying the Federal Government was doing everything possible to ensure the safe release of the remaining 219 girls of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, from Boko Haram.

The Minister, who was accompanied by Ministers of Water Resources, Mrs Sarah Ochekpe of Environment; Mrs Lawrencia Laraba-Mallam of of Land and Housing, and Mrs Akon Eyakenyi, said: “We are here to meet you because Mr. President is very busy today. He cannot come out, he has meetings and since already you are out, that’s why we are asked to come here and meet with you and to apologise for his inability to be here personally.

“But you can see we are all members of the Federal Executive Council. Even though you wrote a letter to the President, he can ask us to come and address you. That’s why we are here to address all of you here.

“You want to meet with Mr. President and find out why up till now the girls have not been rescued to be reunited with their family. We are here to reassure you as a responsible government, there’s no government in the world that will sit back and be comfortable while the citizens of the country are abducted and we don’t know their condition.

“The government is doing all it can to make sure that these girls are rescued and back to their families alive. It is not as if the government is sitting back and watching.

“Government is trying all it could to make sure that these girls are brought back. They are our daughters. We are all mothers; as much as it hurts you, it hurts us even the fathers. You know as well as we do some of you are very much aware of the efforts that the government has been making to make sure that these girls, our daughters are brought back alive.

“There are some technicality issues that border on security, we all know that our military personnel are out there in the bush doing what they can. It is not that they cannot force themselves in there but they have some technical ways of doing their things which we civilian do not know. “

Coordinator of the group Dr. Oby Ezekwezili, while addressing the ministers, said:   “You have joined the Police who have prevented us from meeting our President and Commander-in-Chief, the Commissioner of Police did indicate we should wait and then we will be able to proceed to have the meeting.

“We had written the President as part of our global call to action concerning the rescue of the Chibok girls that we would be visiting him exactly on the day that marks six months of the Chibok girls abduction.

“We have come to join up and have that meeting so that we can listen to Mr. President and convey to him the incredible urgency that we desire concerning the rescue of the Chibok girls and to hear from Mr. President what exactly is going on concerning the rescue of the Chibok girls. We are not sure why we are not being allowed to proceed to see Mr. President and so we need to get answers to that.”