Members of the Bring Back Our Girls on Friday asked the United Nations and the Federal Government to ensure the that the 112 Chibok schoolgirls still in custody of Boko Haram are freed.
While 276 girls were kidnapped on April 14, 2014, 57 of them reportedly escaped, three died, 103 were released, but 112 of the girls have remained in Boko Haram captivity till date.
The group said this in a letter they presented to the Director, United Nations Information Centre Lagos, the protesters during a protest march to the office of the UN agency on Friday.
“We ask you to mobilize all United Nations agencies and to join the call on national, regional and global influence and authorities to support and pressure the Nigerian government to bring the nightmare of school abductions, violent extremism, and insecurity to an end.
“We ask you to use your diplomacy and influence to ensure implementation of the Safe School Declaration, by which Nigeria commits to protecting schools and universities from violence and military use during armed conflict. Raise the issue of the plights of over 1000 children abducted from their schools,” the letter read.
Aisha Mohammed-Oyebode, the Lagos Coordinator of the Bring Back Our Girls group, said the group will sustain its protests to demand the release of the girls still in captivity is to ensure that they are reunited with their families alive.
“The commemoration of the anniversary of Chibok girls in Boko Haram captivity is not mere ritual, nor an annual event that brings people together for merriment, but a gathering of concerned Nigerians who share the pain and who will never sit back to watch Nigeria’s children dehumanized by terrorists,” she noted.
She said the fate of Chibok girls is an indication of the threats confronting the girl child and vulnerable people generally across the country.
“The recent abduction of school girls from Dapchi serves to highlight the existing threat to vulnerable people, children and especially girls. It is disheartening that four years after the abduction of the Chibok girls, the circumstances that made crime against humanity possible still exist.”
She added that the group would continue to champion issues that bothers on the vulnerability of children in the region such as girl-child education, the establishment of safe and secure learning spaces and the crisis of out-of-school children.