By Abiodun Alade

600  days after  their children went missing, parents of  the over 200  schoolgirls, abducted in Chibok, Borno State, met with President Muhammadu Buhari, on Thursday, but their tears were not dried by the meeting.

The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Senator Aisha Alhassan, popularly known as Mama Taraba, who led  government officials to meet the parents and the Bring Back Our Girls(BBOG) activists , faulted them (the Chibok parents and the BBOG members) for giving government a short notice of their coming, adding that Buhari was busy (the President received visiting President of Benin Republic, Boni Yayi, in his office during the protest). She also said the government was not insensitive to the plight of the Chibok parents as claimed.

Other members of the government team that attended to the parents and activists, at the old Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja were Minister of Defence, Brig. Gen. Dan Ali; National Security Adviser, Babangana Monguno, and Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonishakin.

Earlier, the group and parents of the stolen girls had refused to leave when they were told that the President would not meet with them. The protesters insisted on seeing Buhari, who had promised, on July 8, to rescue the schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamic insurgents, Boko Haram  on the night of 14–15 April 2014, from the Government Secondary School, Chibok.

Her (Alhassan) comment drew criticism as Oby Ezekwesili, the BBOG leader and a former minister under Obasanjo administration, in her response , berated the minister, adding that she was unfair to the parents of the abducted girls as well as the BBOG.

“You have been very unfair to us,” she said. “I don’t understand why you can be chiding the parents and the movement. These parents were triggered by the words of the President who promised to rescue their daughters.”

After about three hours of waiting, the President arrived around 1:45 p.m.

Reporters were immediately ordered to leave the venue of the meeting. Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, said journalists could not be permitted to stay  as sensitive issues will be discussed with the parents.

Ezekwesili,   in a speech presented to the President during the meeting, argued that the words of Buhari during his maiden media chat, that the government did not have credible information on the whereabouts of the girls, left the parents, the movement and the rest of the world in shock, considering that the Federal   Government, that had made the girls’ rescue a key indicator of success and defeat of Boko Haram, later declared victory on December 31, 2015.

“It is, therefore, with the deepest pain and disappointment that the parents, Chibok community and our movement are here again six months after our July 8 meeting to register our absolute dissatisfaction on the lack of progress,”the former top official of the World Bank said.

“Our Chibok girls have neither been rescued nor have the measures the Federal Government pledged been instituted. Our disappointment was worse recently when Mr. President shocked the parents into a deeper throe of agony when you publicly gave the excuse ‘that there is no credible information about the girls’ whereabouts’ as the reason our Chibok girls have not been rescued.”

“How can we declare that our nation has won the war when our 219 daughters and other abducted victims are still not back? The parents of our Chibok girls, whom you successfully persuaded at our July 8 meeting, had, following that meeting, told our movement that they had implicit trust in the words of Mr. President that ‘everything will be done to rescue our daughters.”

“Mr. President, it is extremely sad that those same parents, who had placed their implicit confidence in your July 8 promise to rescue their daughters, are here today terribly traumatised, disconsolate and desperate for your reassurance and outline of convincing decisive action that would bring a positive closure to this historical tragedy.

“There is no better way to convey the depth of the devastation of these parents than the fact that we today have the largest ever contingent of them, who despite their meagre resources, have paid their way to Abuja to register their angst, disappointment and demand for rescue of their daughters by Mr. President and the military.”

After the meeting, Ezekwesili briefed journalists on what the President said.

“Mr. President subsequently came to join this meeting and what the President said was that his statement during the media chat that they did not have credible intelligence was being truthful in the way that he knows how to be and that he was not prepared to tell any lies,”the BBOG leader said.

“That they do not have the kind of reliable intelligence that would enable them rescue the girls as immediately as we are demanding and that, therefore, we would continue to try to bear with him and that based on the fact that the government has recorded considerable success in decimating Boko Haram and its hold over the Northeast and that what remains is rescuing our Chibok girls and other affected citizens that are in abduction.

“And that, therefore, we will have to wait and that they would make the effort. He pleaded with the parents that his government would place as much efforts to rescuing the girls and that was the same message he had given to them before and that he was repeating the same message.

“The President stated that he would also have expected us to acknowledge the efforts made, but that he wishes that we would agree that he was committed to the matter of our Chibok girls.

“He used the specific phrase that he sleeps and wakes up thinking about the rescue of our girls.”