Boko Haram threatens to sell school girls

The dreaded militant group, Boko Haram, yesterday claimed responsibility for the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, last month and threatened to “sell them in the market,” AFP has reported, citing a video statement released by the sect.
Boko Haram had on April 14 stormed the secondary school at night, herded the teenagers who had been taking exams onto trucks and disappeared into a remote area along the border with Cameroun.
“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, said in the video, according to the AFP, the respected French news agency, which is normally the first media outlet to get hold of Shekau’s videos.
Shekau in the video said the girls should not have been in school in the first place, but rather should get married. “God instructed me to sell them, they are his properties and I will carry out his instructions,” he said. He did not give further details, neither did he give the number of the girls kidnapped or where they were being kept.
The kidnapping occurred on the same day a bomb blast, also blamed on Boko Haram, killed 75 people in Nyanya on the outskirts of Abuja and marked the first attack on the capital in two years. Boko Haram, which said it is fighting to creat an Islamic state in the North, repeated that bomb attack, more than two weeks later in almost exactly the same spot, killing 19 people and wounding 34 in the suburb of Nyanya.
The inability of the security agencies to rescue the abducted girls in three weeks has triggered anger and protests across the country. There have been protests in Abuja, Lagos, Maiduguri, Port Harcourt, among other places.
On Sunday, it was alleged that the police arrested a leader of a protest staged last week in Abuja that had called on them to do more to find the girls. Naomi Mutah Nyadar was reportedly picked up by police after a meeting she and other campaigners had allegedly held with the First Lady, Patience, concerning the girls. Nyadar was reportedly taken to Asokoro police station, near the Presidential Villa, according to a fellow protester, Lawan Abana, whose two nieces are among the abductees.
But the police denied the arrest. Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, told journalists in Abuja yesterday that as part of measures geared towards eliciting useful information that could help security agents in the ongoing effort at finding and rescuing the students, police operatives had yesterday invited one Mrs. Nyadar Naomi Mutah.
Mutah, a Deputy Director at the National Directorate of Employment in Abuja is a native of Chibok.
Mba described the session as purely interactive and fact-finding, promising that the police and other security agencies were leaving no stone unturned at ensuring that the abducted school children were rescued.
“Mrs. Nyadar cooperated with the police in the course of the interview and was immediately allowed to return home to her loved ones. She was never arrested nor detained as being wrongly speculated in some quarters,” Mba said.
News of her arrest had spread wide in Abuja with many international news media focusing attention on the development. Her lawyer, Samuel Ogala, of the Falana and Falana Chambers was reported as attributing her arrest to the protests she was leading. A huge crowd converged on the Asokoro Police Station demanding for her release and Mutah was whisked from the station in a van belonging to the Presidency.
Meanwhile, there were more protests yesterday demanding the immediate release of the abducted students. In Lagos, thousands of women staged a protest to demand a concerted effort on the part of the Federal Government and the military that would ensure the release of the remaining students.
The protesters with placards marched from Allen Roundabout, Awolowo Way down to the State House, Ikeja, to express their grievances.
There was gridlock on Awolowo Way as the protesters marched along the road singing and demanding the release of the children.
The protest, organised by Women for Peace and Justice in Nigeria, Lagos State Chapter, included various women coalition groups was joined by hundreds of men, including Mr. Femi Falana. Some of the placards read: “Our future leaders are missing, bring them back,” “Chad, Cameroon and Niger, stop enabling criminals,” “We want our girls back alive,” “Save innocent girls,” “Enough is enough,” “234 girls, Haba!” “FGN, Free the Chibok girls,” among others.
Speaking on behalf of the protesters, former Attorney- General of Lagos State, retired Justice Wonu Folami, said the protesters were at the State House to express their grievances over the abduction of the girls.
Deputy Governor, Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, who received the protesters, said the state government would collaborate with the Federal Government to ensure the girls were released, saying it was disheartening to hear that 234 girls were still in te hands of kidnappers.
Spokesperson of the protesters, Aisha Oyebode, said the essence of the protest was that the women wanted the girls to be returned unharmed by their captors. She said it was the responsibility of the government to ensure that they were rescued and brought back home immediately.
In Ogun State, wife of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Bola, and the wife of the state governor, Mrs. Olufunso Amosun, led hundreds of other women from across the state on a street protest against the abduction.
The protest march, which began around 8a.m. at the MKO Abiola Stadium, Kuto, took the women through IBB Boulevard and terminated at the Ogun State House of Assembly Complex, Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan where Mrs. Amosun presented a protest letter to the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Suraju Adekunbi, for onward delivery to the National Assembly.
All clad in black, the protesters also marched to the Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s office, where they demanded action from the Federal Government as well as unconditional and safe release of the school girls. Mrs. Amosun, who spoke on behalf of the women, presented another letter to the governor for onward delivery to President Jonathan, appealing to him to help set the innocent school girls free from the captors.
The Iyalode of Yorubaland, Chief Alaba Lawson; members of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, market women and female artisans, among others, also participated in the protest march.
The women, who deplored the abduction of the girls and likely pains they could be passing through, displayed placards bearing various inscriptions: “Kidnapped school girls must be found”, “Our girls are not sex machines,” “Bring back our girls,” “Haba! This is barbaric in the 21st century” and “Let all our women rise to save our girls.”
At the Ogun State Assembly Complex, the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Elizabeth Sonubi, who addressed the lawmakers called on the states and National Assembly members to take action towards freeing the girls from the terrorists. Sonubi also appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to help release the girls.
A similar protest took place in Akure, Ondo State, where women, in their hundreds besieged the Governor’s Office in Alagbaka, Akure, to demand the release of the girls. The protesting women, who carried placards with various inscriptions which read: “Free our girls now”, “Our hearts are bleeding for our kidnapped daughters” and “We labour and nurse the children but they are kidnapped.”
The state Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Yemi Mammud-Fasominu, and the state chairperson of the National Council of Women Societies, Mrs. Kikelomo Adeniyi, who led other women, expressed grief over the girls’ abduction.
The women, dressed in black, marched through Igbatoro Road and Alagbaka, to the seat of government, chanting songs calling on the authorities to see to the release of the school children. Speaking on behalf of the women, Mammud-Fasominu said that the protesters were grieved and dejected about the condition of the missing girls and called on mothers not to relent in their prayers over the safety and release of the innocent girls.
She also called for the arrest of those perpetuating heinous acts against the female folks, saying they must be fished out. Fasominu urged mothers to keep good surveillance on their daughters because of the challenging security challenges in the country.
Also speaking, Adeniyi and the chairperson, Nigeria Association of Women Journalists, NAWOJ, Mrs. Tope Fasuyi, wondered what the girls were going through, saying women in the state and across the country were not happy because of the situation. In a related development, the Borno Students and Youths Alliance yesterday declared May 7 as a lecturefree day to pray for the safe return of the abducted girls.
The spokesperson of the group, Miss. Fatima Maliki, made this known at a news conference in Maiduguri. Maliki said that the prayer would allow Nigerian students to reflect on the situation, which she described, as unfortunate.
“We are pleading with students all over the country, especially those at the tertiary institutions, to observe next Wednesday as a lecture-free day to enable them to pray for the safe return of the abducted students. Maliki appealed for understanding from authorities at the institutions for the success of the event.
“We are pleading for understanding from lecturers and other stakeholders to enable the plan succeed.” First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan has denied media reports that she ordered the arrest of a woman who attended the women stakeholders’ meeting on the abduction.
A statement issued yesterday by Media Assistant to the First Lady, Ayo Adewuyi, said that Dame Patience did not order the arrest of any woman or anyone before, during and after the meeting.
The statement said: “Our attention has been drawn to media reports that the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, ordered the arrest of a woman who attended the women stakeholders’ meeting discussing ways and best strategies to ensure the release of the abducted children of Chibok Girls Secondary School.”
Meanwhile, Boko Haram sect, yesterday, launched an attack on a Cameroon Gendarmes barracks and killed two personnel in a gun duel in the Northern part of the country. Report indicates that the militants carried out the attack in the barracks located in Kousseri town.
The insurgents after killing two security personnel, freed two of their high profile fighters being held in the barracks detention facility. The source said that the country’s soldiers are presently strategising on waging a war on the insurgents operating around its border with Nigeria. Also, several people were killed in Gamboru Ngala town in Borno State following militants’ attack on the border town between Nigeria and Republic of Cameroun.
Aside those killed and injured, properties worth millions of naira including dozens of vehicles were burnt at the weekly market, which usually hold on Mondays. The sect also burnt houses and killed those they found inside as they chanted ‘Allahu akbar’ and other war songs during the raid on the township, said a military source. - National Mirror