The Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group on Tuesday accused the Federal Government of incompetence and carelessness over the abduction of 110 schoolgirls in Dapchi Town, Yobe State by Boko Haram insurgents.
The BBOG group had been at the forefront of a nationwide campaign to free the 276 Chibok girls seized in a similar fashion in April 2014.
A statement issued by the movement at a press conference in Abuja gave the Federal Government a seven-day deadline to locate and free the remaining 112 Chibok girls and the 110 kidnapped in Dapchi last month or face a criminal lawsuit on grounds of criminal negligence.
The statement read: “How terribly embarrassing it is that within four years since the abduction of 276 Chibok girls in April 2014, our country is again in the news for tragic reasons.
“The abduction of 110 secondary school girls of Government Girls Science and Technical Secondary School, Dapchi in Yobe State on February 19, 2018 is the worst form of a déjà vu that our government could have ever imagined at this time in our nearly four-year old democracy.”
While blaming the kidnap on the incompetence and carelessness of the Nigerian government, the group said it was infuriated by the preventable blunders that led to the latest abduction and urged the concerned authorities to do everything possible to locate and free the girls.
The statement continued: “Our movement – #BringBackOurGirls hereby issues a 7-day (one week) notice to the Federal Government to without further delay BRING BACK our 112 #ChibokGirls and 110 #DapchiGirls.
“Failure by the Federal Government to act immediately shall necessitate our legal actions for its criminal negligence that led to the recent abduction of our 110 DapchiGirls.”
The ultimatum a day after President Muhammadu Buhari informed the former United States Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson that his administration had chosen negotiation for the release of the abducted girls rather than military action.
While some of the Chibok girls had previously been released through negotiations and a prisoner exchange arrangement, 112 of them are still in Boko Haram’s captivity.
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