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Govt Could Have Rescued Chibok Girls But Chose To Play Politics With It – Community Leader

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Chibok Abduction Anniversary: FG Still Unable To Protect Schoolchildren - Amnesty Int'l
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A community leader in Borno State, Ayuba Bassa has revealed that gunmen who kidnapped 276 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok kept them in Gwoza for about four weeks before disappearing into the forest.

Bassa, the National Coordinator of Gwoza Christain Community Association (GCCA) said on Thursday that the location of the houses where the Chibok girls were kept was known by everyone in the community but the government chose not to take appropriate action.

Bassa who spoke on Thursday during an interview with Channels TV Sunrise Daily lamented that urgent steps could have been taken earlier to rescue the girls rather than for the government to make promises that are not concrete seven years after the girls were abducted.

“I could picture when the abduction earlier happened. Most of the people within the Gwoza settlement then will tell you the houses where the girls were divided into and kept. Those Chibok girls were in Gwoza for more than four weeks and were being taught how to recite the scriptures.

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“So, if you go to Gwoza the memory is still fresh. They will tell you it is this house and this house that they were being kept. I can point like two houses they were kept and the routes they passed.

“So many residents feel if the government had made enough efforts to know that the girls were kept in house number one and house number two, the girls would have been rescued,” he said.

He added that he and many others in the area believed the girls who were abducted are just pawns in the game being played by politicians in the country who have chosen not to care about the feeling of their citizens.

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Particularly, Bassa noted that he believes the Chibok girls’ abduction was done to paint the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration in a bad light.

“Even if you go to Gwoza today, ask anybody, they will tell you, the girls were used for political rivalry,” he added.

Naija News recalls on the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 mostly Christian female students were kidnapped from the Chibok Secondary School in Borno State by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.

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Although most of the 276 girls escaped or were later released, more than 112 girls are still unaccounted for.

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari-led government, on Wednesday reassured parents of schoolgirls of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, abducted by Boko Haram in 2014 that they remain on the minds of the government.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in a statement, noted that the government is working on securing the release of the schoolgirls.

“No one is giving up hope here.

“Efforts to secure their release through various channels and activities of the security and intelligence agencies remain on course.

“The recent decisive push by the military against the terrorists gives hope that a breakthrough is possible and could happen anytime soon,” he said.