NLC plans protest over Chibok girls, state of the nation

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said it was mobilising members and affiliates nationwide to join forces with the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) agitators to demand the safe rescue of the abducted schoolgirls by the Federal Government.

Over 200 schoolgirls, it would be recalled, were abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014. Two years after, efforts so far to rescue the girls have yielded no result.

BBOG is planning a weeklong activity to keep the demand for safe rescue of the girls alive, under the theme: ‘HopeEndures.’

The NLC said the agitation for the rescue of the girls would be lumped together with a day protest against the state of the nation. “The demand for the return of Chibok girls is also part of the planned day of protest on the state of the nation,” the NLC said.

As much as the labour movement recognises the effort so far made by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to crush the Boko Haram insurgents, nothing short of rescuing the abducted girls is acceptable, it said.

“To us in the labour movement, 219 missing girls are future workers, mothers not just statistics. The received wisdom says if you educate a girl child, you educate a whole community. Those who abduct 219 girls out of school have definitely criminally abducted communities of future doctors, nurses and leaders. We must therefore join forces with the forces of progress and development worldwide to demand for the liberation of our beloved girls of Chibok,” Ayuba Wabba, factional president of the NLC, said on Wednesday.

According to the NLC, it is exactly two years these girls were criminally abducted from their school of learning by Boko Haram terrorists. Precisely 276 schoolgirls were abducted in their school, 57 escaped, 219 remain missing till date. The lamented the death the reported death of about 17 parents of the abducted girls as a result of the trauma just as it observed that many more are daily agonising.

“An injury to these girls is certainly an injury to all us. It is not over until these girls are liberated from the clutches of the criminal abductors. NLC hereby calls on Nigerian government to intensify the security measures to liberate the girls. We acknowledge the commendable efforts of Buhari administration to smash the dens of the Bokoharam terrorists. The point cannot be overstated that only the return Chibok girls would convince the world that the war on terror in Nigeria is not just the war to reclaim territories but to regain lives,” the congress stated.