Erstwhile Minister of Education and Vice-President of the World Bank, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesisli is one of the leading champions of the Bring Back  Our Girls Campaign. She has set aside many international consultancies to lead a rainbow coalition  championing the cause of the more than 200 girls abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State by insurgents of the Islamic Boko Haram group.

The group has organised daily sit in sessions at the Unity Fountain Abuja and drawn global attraction to itself and its cause to the discomfort of the authorities in Abuja.
On Day 90 of the abduction of the girls last Sunday, Mrs. Ezekwesili spoke in an exclusive interview with Vanguard on her cause.

By Levinus Nwabughiogu

File:

It is 90 days today since the Chibok girls were abducted and 75 days since the bringourgirlsback campaign took off. How does it feel coming here?
Everyday that the girls have not come back leaves us with so much pain, agonising pain, thinking what they might be going through in captivity and the thought of what they might be going through enables us gain strength to remain resolute to champion their course until success is achieved by government in rescuing the girls.

Are you sure of any succour soon from the government?
The counter to that is why shouldn’t I believe that my government would be doing something positive to rescuing 219 Nigerian girls? I would hate to think that our government is not doing anything which is why I stay positive and which is why as a group we stay completely committed to the cause of the girls and we are saying that until we see success, we must be the critical voice of the people championing the call for our government to be compelled into acting positively in the direction of  rescuing of the girls.

There is a strong call to government to negotiate with the terrorists as a way of bringing back the girls. But some Nigerians are opposed to that. In your own estimation, do you think it will pay off?
One thing that we know is that a government is always most equipped because of the aggregate of knowledge, aggregate of information and  aggregate of expertise that it can call on. Our government must put all the options on the table based on analysis of the options, it would know what kind of mix of options would enable it get to the desirable outcome, the target is to get back the girls alive and our government will want to stand on the premise that having all of the assets that it has in terms of expertise, knowledge, skills, information that we as ordinary citizens don’t have. Our target is; do an analysis of all of those and do it quickly and move in the direction of rescuing our girls as quickly as possible.

We understand that the young Malala from Pakistan is here. What should Nigerians expect from her coming?
Malala is a symbol of triumph over travail. Malala is a young woman who has become the symbol for girl-child education. That symbol that she represents is in two parts: One, the same way that Malala was able to overcome her traducers and has become a global figure and voice for girl-child education, so also will our Chibok girls overcome their traducers and that once they are rescued, they will join Malala in amplifying the message on the necessity for every girl child to be educated because, when you educate a girl child, you have completely created the pathway for the development of a nation.

And then the second part of it is that Malala being here gives us the opportunity to actually focus on how the nation can have honest conversation about the issue of terrorism, a conversation that is open, honest, without rancour and bitterness and therefore, the kind of conversation that ultimately leads to the beginning of rebuilding of social capital.

What we have lost tremendously in this country in the last couple of years is social capital. There has been a serious erosion of our social capital and we need to rebuild it because a nation that is at war with terrorists without the prerequisite social capital endangers itself.