Shettima expresses hope over rescue of abducted girls

From Mustapha Isah Kwaru, Maiduguri

Borno state Governor, Kashim Shettima on Wednesday expressed optimism that the schoolgirls abducted by the Boko Haram insurgents over two weeks ago will be gotten unhurt.

Governor Shettima made the remark during the swearing-in of new Grand Khadi and two Permanent Secretaries, held at the Government House in Maiduguri, even as he urged parents of the missing girls to be calm.

“We are at a broken-hearted time in our dear state because as we speak, over 200 daughters of Borno, 200 young schoolgirls with what should have been a promising future, are being detained somewhere by our fellow men who claimed to be devoted Muslims.

“So much effort is being put in place by the security forces, we are doing everything to support them by way of complementing the efforts of the Federal Government.There is commitment by all stakeholders and Insha Allah,our girls will be gotten back and in good health”, Shettima declared.

The governor said the abductors have deviated from the command of Almighty God, who prescribed adequate protection and care for women.

He added: “Whereas Allah, who created all of us has mandated us to protect women, to support them, to serve them with special attention and to even spare them during Islamic holy wars that the Boko Haram claimed to be fighting.

In Islam, a woman is supposed to be treated as gold; Islam requires that a man should be the one to prepare meals and serve his woman; when a woman chooses to cook, she should be paid for cooking that meal unless she forfeits being paid and offers to serve the man out of her own will and without any charge”.

According to the governor,Allah might have made the Prophet (SAW) to have only one surviving child who happened to be a woman probably to underscore how precious a girl child is.

“Allah has created the girl-child with very enduring love for her parents, brothers and sisters. I recall a particular family whose daughters took care of their sick father till he died while the male child got tired and rarely visited their father on his sickbed before he died.

The love of a girl- child to parents and relatives is everlasting; ask those with loving sisters or daughters about the benefit of girl-child; he or she who doesn’t have any girl-child is yet to test the endearing love of a child to parents and this is why you can imagine what the parents of those 200 girls are going through”, he further decried.

The new appointees comprised of Khadi Umar Ramat Mukaila as the Grand Khadi of the state Sharia Court of Appeal while the permanent secretaries are Alhaji Adamu Idrisa Timta and Abba Kaka Abba Jato .