James Emejom in Abuja
The co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, Ms. Bala Usman saturday vowed to sustain the campaign to press for the rescue and return of all adopted Chibok girls.
Speaking on Arise Television, a sister broadcast arm of THISDAY Newspapers, she said the campaign was able to attract both local and global attention partly because people set aside religious and ethnic considerations.
She said: “I think it was the ability of people to empathise and understand that this is an important thing. I remember saying let’s come out and demand – a few people had expressed concern that no one is going to be interested, people might not come out and respond.
“And I remember being very clear to say even if five of us come out, five of us care and I believe it’s something we should do irrespective of the differences we might have. Some of the narrative around the adoption of Chibok girls was around the fact that there was a divide along religious, and ethnic lines.”
She said: “There were questions around why we were advocating, why I was coming out because ‘you are not from the North-east, the girls are predominantly Christians or you are not from Chibok’.
“But once you believe in something, you understand that these girls were adopted, were kidnapped, everyone was able to come out and say yes, these are young girls, yes, no one should be taken away from their family and of course, we would rally round until the girls are rescued and returned back”, she pledged.
Boko Haram had kidnapped 276 girls from a boarding secondary school in Borno State in April 2014. The girls were writing their General Certificate Examinations (GSE) before the terrorists struck.
Usman said: “At that point after the kidnap I felt we should ask, demand for their rescue and Nigerians and indeed the global community should not be quiet on the magnitude of such adoption. And a week after the abduction, I remembered sending emails to friends and asking them to come out and raise the voices of this vulnerable group.
“The Chibok community is indeed a very small community, a minority and may not have that ability to crave the awareness required for that. And when you look at the north-east, you look at the northern Nigeria, girl-child education is critical and important and the impact of the adoption of those girls tremendously set the northern Nigeria back on the path of girl-child education.
“And I don’t think we’ve had civil society sort of respond to this in this way and I think that was because it was such a critical issue”, Usman added.
