The Chibok girls’ issue is really very sad; no responsible parent would be happy with what happened to those poor girls. I am a father of two little girls. Any time I look into the eyes of any of my daughters, I fight to hold back tears because I remember that girls like them, born and so dearly loved by parents, are missing and worst of all, in the hands of people that love to kill. It is one issue that has caused so much heartache not only for the parents of the girls, or the people of Borno, but the people of Nigeria as a whole. It is so sad. Last year, when I read an account of one of the parents of the missing girls, I couldn’t sleep all night long because he said he would prefer to pick up the corpse of his daughter and bury her rather than have her in the hands of some misguided vandals who do not have limits to what they can do. Imagine a father preferring to see his daughter’s corpse?Look at how the leader of the insurgents said he wanted to sell the girls into slavery, that some were married off etc. It is disturbing because their capabilities for committing heinous crimes are beyond human comprehension. But like I said earlier, hope springs eternally from the heart of men. Only an insane parent will give up on a missing child. We believe quite passionately and realistically that these poor girls will be found. We have been working hard with some international agencies towards their rehabilitation, trauma management and how they can be made to pick up the pieces of their lives once we get them. We believe that at the risk of compromising their safety, the hopeful assessment of most security agencies, is that probably they may be in the Sambissa forest which is very large. Hitherto we heard they were being held around the Gwoza and Damboa axis. But for now Damboa, especially the township has been recovered and is relatively safe. Gwoza too has been recaptured. Thus, our hopeful assessment is that probably the girls are in the Sambisa forest and we hope that they would be found in good shape – the most important thing is to get them alive; and alive we shall get them.
