TheCable

The Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group has acceded to the request of the federal government to join it on a tour of Sambisa forest.

Last week, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, wrote to the group inviting it on a guided tour of the area — to experience how the search for the Chibok girls was going on.

But responding, the advocacy group demanded an apology from the chief of army staff over alleged slander as a condition to accept the invitation.

It also asked for a pre-meeting with some of the service chiefs and other key officials of the government. However, the federal government rejected the conditions.

On Sunday, Oby Ezekwesili, leader of the group, wrote to the minister of information, informing him of the willingness of the movement to join the trip to the northeast.

“I am, on behalf of our movement, pleased to inform you that we have reviewed our decision. Your second letter suggested that the timing window for a few days of delay was absent due to practical and cost constraints,” she wrote.

“We are not sure how the decision to invite us on such a short timeline could have been considered appropriate by the FG, but we have reconsidered our conditions. We are ready to join you, the minister of information, the minister of defence and the chief of air force on the same flight and vehicles to embark on the tour.”

THE LETTER IN FULL

[email protected]
#BringBackOurGirls
Unity Fountain, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria.
www.bringbackourgirls.ng | [email protected] | 0803 357 9711
January 15, 2017
The Honourable Minister of Information and Culture
Office of the Honourable Minister
Federal Ministry of Information and Culture
Federal Secretariat, Phase II, Shehu Shagari Way
Central Business District
PMB 473 Abuja
NIGERIA
Dear Minister Mohammed,
RE: Letter of Invitation to #BringBackOurGirls for a Guided Tour of the Northeast
We acknowledge your letter of January 14, 2017, responding to ours of January 13, 2017. We had responded to your invitation to our Movement, #BringBackOurGirls, to join a Federal Government delegation on a “guided tour” of the Northeast.

While noting your reaction to the prior conditions we demanded, it is proper to remind the Federal Government of the several contexts that framed the substance of our letter of the 13th January.

During our visit with President Muhammadu Buhari on July 8, 2015, our Movement presented” The ABC’s of Our Demands on the Rescue of ChibokGirls”. More than eighteen months after that meeting, we duly acknowledge and appreciate that 24 of our Chibok Girls out of 219 are back. But 195 are still held by Boko Haram with no information on the status of their rescue.

It is very disappointing that most of those “ABC of our Demands” for our girls and their parents have neither been addressed nor honoured to date nearly one and a half years after.

Furthermore, we must remind the FG that early on in our advocacy, our Movement had in fact planned a visit to the North East and specifically, Chibok. We at that time submitted a notice of interest to travel to a war zone to the Federal Government but the response to us was that the military could not guarantee our safety and therefore did not want us to visit the warfront.

The concern for us however, is that in the last one year, evidence abound of a series of adversarial actions and reactions of the Federal Government to our now 32 month- old advocacy demanding rescue of our #ChibokGirls – 195 of whom are still captives of Boko Haram terrorists 1007 days after they were abducted on April 14, 2014. We cite just a few of the hostile actions against our citizens’ movement even though our advocacy is within bounds of our right to demand accountability from our government.

They include the:
• Use of Nigerian Police to assault the Movement and disrupt our marches on different dates 6th and 11th in September 2016.
• Use of Nigerian Police to offer protection to a counter-protest group that came out on 6 September, 2016 to disrupt our activities during our 72-hourly marches in September.
• Failure to fulfill any of the promises that President Muhammadu Buhari made to the Movement on July 8, 2015 and January 14, 2016 to set up a Quarterly Feedback Platform on the government’s rescue operation.
• Failure to act on our Movement’s Freedom of Information request for the FG to publish the reports of the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the Northeast (the Tanimu Turaki Committee) 2013, and the Presidential Fact-Finding Committee on the Abducted Chibok School Girls (the General Sabo Committee) report submitted June 2015.
• Failure to provide any details on the Government’s rehabilitation program for the 24 recovered ChibokGirls despite repeated demands by our Movement.
• Use of the Nigerian Police to intimidate the Movement’s DAY 1000 march for our Chibok Girls last Sunday, January 8, 2017.
• Endorsement by the Chief of Army Staff of slanderous statements made by a group that visited the Army Headquarters on January 10, 2017.
• Failure of the FG to respond to our Movement’s questions on the status report of its widely-publicized assurance in October 2016 that another batch of 83 girls were to be released “very soon”.

Curiously, without any break in this litany of adversarial strikes at our Movement and members, we suddenly on the 12th of January received a letter from Minister Mohammed, inviting us on a “guided tour” with military within an extremely short timeline of two working days. Even worse, the letter failed to provide any details relevant to the logistics of the special tour.

Despite the very evident dubitable context of relationship between the Movement and the Federal Government until we received your letter of the 11th January, I am on behalf of our Movement, pleased to inform you that we reviewed our decision. Your second letter suggested that the timing window for a few days of delay was absent due to practical and cost constraints.

We are not sure how the decision to invite us on such short timeline (two working days) could have been considered appropriate by the FG, but we have reconsidered our conditions. We are ready to join you, the Minister of Information, the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Air Force on the same flight and vehicles to embark on the tour. Our representation is made up of the following members:
1. Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili– Co Convener
2. Aisha Yesufu– Chair of Strategic Team
3. Allen Manasseh — Chibok Community member
4. Ibrahim Usman — Member

However, before embarking on the plane and the full trip, we remain insistent on the need to have a pre-tour meeting, even if it is at the airport. We wish to arrive the airport as early as possible in order to receive the following details from your team:
• Specific mission objective of the “Guided Tour” and its impact on the rescue/release of our ChibokGirls.
• The tour logistics, itinerary, details of schedule of tour programs and duration. At the time of writing, we were yet to be informed of the return date of the trip, the duration of the trip (length of days), daily itinerary, logistics, etc.
• The details of the local and international media on the tour. While your last letter states that local and international media have been invited on the trip, it does not specifiy which. We would like to (a) know which media houses have been invited and (b) propose our own media contacts should they not be included on your list.
• The Security analytics for this mission taking civilian citizens to the theatre of war and the risk mitigations built in. While we realize and have often acknowledged in our press statements the efforts of the military has made at securing peace in the Northeast, we find it curious to be receiving your invitation at this time when soldiers – including some who died just last week are still vulnerable to attacks by Boko Haram.
• We ask that any other questions arising from these should be addressed as well.

It bears repeating, that our demand on our military to as must as it is feasible generate milestones, timelines, more results and to deploy a better system of sharing its progress is well within our citizens’ right to demand accountability in a Democracy. Our Movement also has a record of commending efforts of the military in securing peace in the Northeast. We have also used our #NigeriansHonourOurHeroes initiative to constantly draw attention to the welfare of our nation’s frontline troops and that of the families of soldiers killed in combat. Demanding that the FG and military act to rescue our girls and all other abducted citizens as well as restore security and order should never be regarded as impudence by our public institutions, officials and their acolytes.

The Division of Labor between our Movement and Federal Government is evident. As an independent citizens Movement, we exist to advocate and apply pressure that will compel the Federal Government to at all times take result-based actions for the rescue of Chibok Girls and other citizens.

We shall maintain our stance and stay focused on our advocacy role until our girls are brought back alive!
Once again, we thank you for your letter and look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning at the airport.

Yours sincerely,
Obiageli (Oby) Ezekwesili
For and on behalf of #BringBackOurGirls