Bring Back Our Girls Now And Alive’

  

                   #BringBackOurGirls, BBOG, an dvocacy group formed after over 200 girls of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, were abducted, started with sit-outs to press for the rescue of the girls.
The first major outing was on July 23, 2014 when vigils and protests were held to mark 100 days of the abduction in some parts of Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Togo, the United Kingdom, UK, the United States, US, Canada, and Portugal, and, following global attention brought by the abduction, the UK, US, France, China, Canada, Israel and the European Union, offered support to Nigeria.

Members of #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG) group on a silence protest match to show the sorrowful state of the abducted Chibok school girls who have being in captivity a year ago in Abuja yesterday. Photo by Gbemiga Olamikan

But despite the concerted efforts by Nigeria and other nations, the abducted girls have remained in captivity, with no clue on their fate.
Some Nigerians believed that if the Federal Government had acted within 48 hours of the abduction, the girls would have been rescued before disappearing from the radar.
Meanwhile, some of the people, especially politicians, who joined the group at the initial stage have either stopped coming for the #BBOG daily sitouts now that they have been elected.
It is rumoured that some politicians merely used the platform to propagate their cause ahead of the general elections.
It is even being rumoured that the #BBOG arrowhead, Mrs. Oby Ezekwezili, may be appointed into the next federal cabinet.
But the group has continued to deny that it is being sponsored by any political entity. “We are a non-partisan civic movement and therefore shall continue to advocate and demand for justice for our 219 Chibok girls. Until our girls are rescued, our movement will not stop”, it said in a statement.
According to the group, during the march to commemorate the first anniversary of the abducted girls,  “We have been demanding the rescue of the abducted girls for the last one year but nothing is more remarkable than having their peers carry out an exclusive activity for their cause. This is a generation that will grow with a well-developed sense of humanity, of standing for others, and also demanding accountability from their leaders. We also thank their parents and guardians for not only allowing but also encouraging them to participate. Your efforts in raising kind, caring and responsible girls shall never be in vain.
“The citizens across Nigeria and around the world have participated in several solidarity activities for our #ChibokGirls in the last one year. We must acknowledge empathetic people all over the world who have raised their voices for our girls; from the one million women in Mexico who marched for their cause, to the hundreds of thousands who have stood for this cause, from Mexico to South Africa, to the UK, to Afghanistan; New Zealand to Syria, to Japan, the US and so on. Rich, poor; male, female; the young and old; across all walks and perceived divides; all bound in a shared humanity demanding #BringBackOurGirls Now and Alive! We stand in solidarity with you today as you mark this day. Among the special commemoration activities today will be the lighting of the Empire State building in New York City with the colours red and purple. Red being specifically for our #ChibokGirls, and Purple representing demand against violence on women generally”.
The group expressed its gratitude for the continued efforts of friends “who have stayed committed to our cause all through the past year”. #BBOG went on: “Friends of OUR #ChibokGirls like the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala Yousafzai, and global music icon, Alicia Keys, as well as the media are notable in their efforts.
“We thank Nigeria’s president-elect for his kind and soothing words on the occasion of this one-year commemoration; wherein he promises among other things to do everything he can to ensure the release of the girls, when he becomes the president, if they are still alive.
“However, this does not address our concerns. We demand that the safe return of our girls be the top agenda of the transition between the present and the incoming one”.
The group also reached out to the world body, United Nations, UN, to, “through its relevant agencies, deploy relevant instruments in ensuring the prompt rescue of our Chibok girls and other abductees, as well as improve the security situation in the country; escalate and process the request of the Chibok nation for the help of independent private investigators; call on world leaders and other members of the international community to reactivate their support for the #BringBackOurGirls cause and push it back as a prioritized discourse because the only logical closure to this issue would be when our girls have been brought back and insurgency becomes a thing of the past”.