TheCable

Leader of the #Bringbackourgirls campaign, Obiageli Ezekwesili, says the group will not be intimidated by incessant attacks from security agencies.

The former minister of education also wants security agencies to stop vilifying, intimidating and harassing the group, but to channel their energies into rescuing the abducted Chibok girls.

“For over two months, security agencies have harassed and sought to intimidate our movement incessantly. The latest was the statement yesterday credited to the deputy director of department of state security, Mrs. Marilyn Ogar, who described the #BringBackOurGirls campaign as a franchise. She made the comment in Abuja while responding to questions from journalists at a press briefing by the National Information Centre (NIC),” Ezekwesili said on Thursday on behalf of the group.

“This is a dangerous and unprecedented attack because as it is well known in security circles, the term ‘franchise’ is used to refer to inter-related terrorist cells. She is reported to have said that if indeed our movement ‘was a protest group, it would not need to force members to register and wear tags.’

“‘Mrs. Ogar also affirmed: ‘Security forces know about all the activities of the group. We know that they have a bank account.  We know that they visit prominent individuals to solicit funds; we know that they have split themselves into groups; we know that they want to simulate a protest march in Abuja to make it look like they went to Chibok. There is a clear attempt to smear our work with a link our work with Chibok and Sambisa forest.’”

Ezekwesili added that by the allegations against the group, security agencies are setting them up for a crackdown. She explained that the activities of the group are open and motivated by empathy and the need to search and rescue these girls.

She also expressed shock at the vilification, intimidation, innuendos and threats from security agencies. She urged them to stop.

“Security agencies have the responsibility to protect rather than intimidate citizens trying to do a good turn.It will be recalled that on May 8, the director of defence information of the defence headquarters had alleged that we distorted the report of what was for us constructive engagement with them two days previously.

“He claimed that we were trying to pitch public opinion against the armed forces and to project the Nigerian military in bad light and further heat up the polity. The release further claimed that we were trying to drag the military into politics. The statement by Mrs. Ogar yesterday was escalating this accusation to a higher level.

“We wish to state unequivocally that our objectives were and remain to engage constituted authority in Nigeria and our security agencies as allowed by our Constitution. We are simply engaged in civic action that is constructively seeking pathways towards achieving what we consider to be the collective objective of bringing back our girls.For the avoidance of doubt, we have always been and remain a single-issue coalition without any political, religious, ethnic or regional dimensions to our struggle.

“We are conscious of our rights and responsibilities as citizens and we are exercising them to remind government of their own responsibilities to provide security to citizens and rescue those in distress. We cannot be stopped from exercising our citizenship rights through intimidation. Far from seeking to undermine the efforts of the security agencies, we seek to enhance it and make it more robust and effective. Our concerns about the lack of results so far, 87 days after these girls have been abducted, are aimed at motivating the security agencies to more effective action.

“Finally, rather than see our civic action calling on the government and its security agencies to do their work as enemy action, we urge them to take action against the real enemies who are the terrorists who have abducted and kept in captivity for almost three months over two hundred innocent Nigerian girls.”