Chibok girls reunite with parents, narrate ordeal
Aspecial Church thanksgiving, filled with a mixture of tears and joy, held yesterday in Abuja for the freed 21 Chibok schoolgirls who also reunited with their parents.
Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Minister of Women Affairs Hajiya Jummai Alhassan attended the service.
Ms Gloria Dame, one of the rescued girls, gave testimony on behalf of her colleagues at a the service organised for them at a DSS health facility in Abuja.
The girl, who spoke in Hausa, said that their survival in captivity was an act of God.
“I did not know that a day like this will come that we will be dancing and giving thanks to God among people.
“For one month and 10 days we stayed without food. I narrowly escaped bomb blast in the forest.
“We are praying to God to touch the heart of Boko Haram to repent and we are calling on Nigerians to pray and fast for the release of our remaining ones in captivity,’’ she said.
Shiktra Kwali, in her sermon at the interdenominational service, urged the girls not to allow their harrowing experience to deter them from achieving their dreams.
The Chairman of Chibok Local Government Council, Mr Yaga Yarakawa, said the release of the girls was “historic’’ and the Chibok community at home and in the Diaspora were happy about the development.
Yarakawa said contrary to views of some Nigerians, the 21 freed girls were the actual Chibok Secondary School girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
“Before their abduction, I was involved in supervising their feeding which was organised by the Borno State Secondary Schools Feeding System. So I know them very well.
“These are the real girls and you can see when their parents came, you see their joy, it manifest naturally.”
Yarakawa appealed to the government to put all necessary machinery in place to ensure the release of the other girls.
Speaking in same vein, Mr Yakubu Nkeki, the Chairman of Abducted Chibok Girls’ Parents Association, thanked the President for the release of the girls.
He said from the physical looks of the girls it was obvious that they were not radicalised as claimed by some people.
He also debunked the claim that many of the girls were pregnant.
Meanwhile, Information and Culture Minister Lai Mohammed has described the reunification as “a day the world had been waiting for. “It is day of joy.”
As government continues negotiation on the remaining girls, the minister appealed to the public against making unguarded statements that could truncate the rescue of the remaining captives.
Families of the girls left Chibok in Borno state on Friday and arrived in Abuja on Saturday night and were reunited with the girls at the Church on Sunday.
The parents saw the girls for the first time in over 900 days since they were abducted from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has commended the Federal Government for securing the release of 21 abducted Chibok girls from Boko Haram insurgents.
CAN president, Dr. Samson Olasupo Ayokunle in a statement by his spokesman, Pastor Bayo Oladeji described the release of the girls as pleasant and assured the government of prayers to ensure the remaining girls and others in captivity are released.