By Mashe Umaru Gwamna Umar Muhammad Puma & Ayodele Samuel, Lagos
Parents of some of the abducted girls as well as the five escaped Chibok girls who earlier reportedly turned down an opportunity to meet President Goodluck Jonathan are now ready to meet with the president after they received a formal invitation from the Nigerian presidency.
According to National Chairman of the community, Dr. Pogu Bitrus, a letter requesting a meeting with the president next Tuesday was received on Wednesday.
The community meeting is coming several some three months after the militant group, Boko Haram kidnapped over 250 girls in Chibok, Borno state.
President Jonathan initially ignored the abductions, claiming it was politically motivated, however, a global movement around the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag on Twitter mobilized the world against the Nigerian regime following the abductions.
An earlier meeting with the girls and their families was cancelled by the parents, forcing the presidency to claim that the cancellation was the handiwork of opposition and the #BringBackOurGirls movement.
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described as a compound embarrassment the fact that it took 17-year-old girl-child education campaigner, Pakistani Malala Yousafzai, to visit and convince President Goodluck Jonathan to agree to a meeting with representatives of the parents of the kidnapped school girls.
“President Jonathan, who has already embarrassed himself and the entire people of Nigeria, by his inexplicable failure to visit Chibok since the girls were abducted over 90 days ago, has compounded the embarrassment and insulted Nigerians, by waiting for Malala to goad him to meet with the girls’ parents, not in Chibok but in Abuja,’’ the party said, in a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
APC reminded President Jonathan that neither in Nigeria’s culture nor in any other culture are those hit by tragedy invited to be offered solace, adding that the practice is to visit those to be offered solace ‘in situ’.
The party reiterated its earlier call on the President to shake-off his lethargy and bring the abducted school girls home safely, instead of playing politics with the lives of over 200 human beings.
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