The Presidential Fact-finding Committee on the Abducted Chibok Schoolgirls today visited Chibok, Borno State, where the students were snatched from their hostels by marauding Boko Haram insurgents on April 14, 2014.
Members of the Committee left Maiduguri, the state capital, last Sunday, after spending eight days in the first phase of the Committee’s interactions with Borno stakeholders, with a promise to return shortly to interface specifically with Chibok communities.
A statement by the Member/Spokesperson, Kingsley Osadolor, said the Fact-finding Committee was received today at Chibok by the Borno State Commissioner for Education, Chairman of Chibok Local Government, five District Heads of the surrounding communities, Chairman of the Parent Teachers Association of the school, the Principal, and several others, including wailing parents of the abducted girls.
Also present were some of the students who escaped from the insurgents.
Members of the Committee visited the burnt-out structures of Government Secondary School, where the girls were abducted. The receiving party conducted members of the Committee round the grounds of the school.
The Principal, Vice Principals, Matrons of the hostels, as well as security guards and cooks were earlier debriefed by the Committee in Maiduguri.
The Committee later held an interactive session with the Chibok communities on the school premises. At the meeting, Chairman of the Fact-finding Committee, Brig.-Gen.Ibrahim Sabo (rtd), who spoke with misty eyes, said the Committee came, first, to sympathise with the parents and other community members over the havoc of the insurgents.
He assured the people of President Goodluck Jonathan’s concern about the fate of the abducted students, saying that the President was having sleepless nights.
Gen. Sabo also urged the people to be calm and patient. He informed them of the multifaceted approach to resolving the abduction saga. “As we gather here today to see you wailing, by the grace of God, we will also gather here to dance and rejoice with you when the girls regain their freedom,” he said.
The Chairman of Chibok Local Government, Hon. Bana Lawan, praised the Committee for visiting and bringing messages of succour and hope to members of the communities. He berated those who had claimed that the mass abduction was a political scam. “The greatest fact your committee can find are the biological parents of some of the students who were abducted,” he said.
The Commissioner for Education, Hon. Musa Inuwa Kubo, also expressed happiness over the visit by the Committee. He urged members of the Fact-finding Committee to convey to President Jonathan the people’s hope and belief that the girls would be found and reunited with their families.
Others who spoke at the meeting include the Rev. Enoch Mark whose two daughters are among the schoolgirls still unaccounted for. The Rev. Mark frowned at what he called the politicisation of the abduction issue, pointing out that the matter was also not religious, because the families affected were adherents of the country’s major faiths.
The Committee has since returned to Abuja.
