TheCable

First Lady Patience Jonathan wept profusely on Sunday, alleging that the Borno State government was trying to frustrate efforts to rescue the kidnapped students.

Over 200 female students were kidnapped at Government Girls College, Chibok, Borno State, by suspected Boko Haram militants on April 15 and are yet to be traced.

Jonathan’s wife also alleged that the Borno State governor’s wife, Nana Kashim Shettima, has consistently shunned meeting with her despite repeatedly assuring her on phone.

She was speaking at the reconvened meeting with  wives of governors, female lawmakers, female ministers and leaders of various women organisations to strategise on rescuing the girls.

She said: “As the mother of the nation, I have called my daughter the wife of Borno ‎State governor. I told her that I was here for you, I will work with you.

“When this happened she did not come.  I later sent for her and I asked her a few questions she didn’t answer. During our last meeting I requested through her representative to come with a few people, she didn’t turn up till today. The next thing I saw was women demonstrating.

“No woman will sit and watch her house on fire. Today my house is on fire.

“On Friday when she was called she gave 100 per cent assurance that she will be here but today she sent commissioner for women affairs. Again today she failed to show up and sent the commissioner.

“She is the mother of those children. I am the grandmother. She should be more concerned. Nigerian women are calling her but she has refused to come. If the mother of Borno is not here I don’t know what to do.

“I don’t want anybody to reply me on the pages of newspapers because I am not abusing anybody. If you are not crying why must I cry more than the bereaved because if I do the world will ask me questions.”

Frustration

She expressed frustration, alleging that the answers being given by the commissioners for education, women affairs and the school principal were “not honest enough”.

She then started weeping.

“‎There is God. He will help us. You people must know that there is God o! You people must stop this bloodshed. Nigerian women will not cry in vain. You are playing games with us. If you don’t want our help don’t use our women to demonstrate again,” she said.

The school principal, Hajia Asabe Kwabura, ‎ said her grand-daughter, Dorcas Yabuku, was among the abducted girls.

She did not produce the register containing the names of the students, saying she was with the police from the early hours of Sunday when the meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan ended.

Kwabura said every record was burnt down at the school, where she has been ‎the principal for three years.

She said: “I was not in school when they (Boko Haram) struck. I was in Maiduguri for medical check-up which is every two weeks. I am diabetic.”

On ‎the security arrangement for the school, she said: “The security men in Chibok were alerted to provide security for examination. The DPO deployed four policemen to the examination hall.

“There was no security provided‎ in the school at night. Chibok was safe until the incident.”

Illegal mix

The West African Examination Council (WAEC), meanwhile, said the certificates of the 135 male students who sat for the exam at Chibok ‎will be invalid because the school has not be officially recognised as a mixed school.

Head of WAEC National Office, Mr. Charles Eguridu, responding to the claim by the Commissioner of Education, Musa Kubo, that the body was informed, said for as long as the request had not been approved, the arrangement was “illegal”.

‎He said 387 girls wrote the English paper, while only 80 wrote mathematics. He said about 307 girls who ought to write the Mathematics were absent.

Kwabura however said some parents stopped their children from further writing the exam out of  fear.

This, she said, explains why the 307 girls did not turn up for the mathematics exam.

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