Chibok parents travel to Cameroon on verification mission

Garba Shehu, a spokesperson to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, confirmed on Saturday that some of the Chibok parents would soon be sent to Cameroon. Senator Aisha Alhassan, the minister of women affairs, and Ambassador Hadiza Mustapha, the Nigerian high commissioner in Cameroon, are engaged in the necessary preparations.
The mission is required to clear the air on the declaration by one of the child suicide bombers, as the latest information from Cameroon shows the intercepted girls are about ten years of age, much younger than the girls abducted from Chibok on April 14, 2014. It has been also learnt one of the duo was believed to be heavily drugged and, therefore, not in full control of her senses.
The arrested girls may be brought to Yaoundé on Monday, March 28. The Murtala Mohammed Foundation offered cooperation to the Nigerian government. It will sponsor two parents from Chibok. Yakubu Nkeki, the chairman of the Parents of the Abducted Girls from Chibok Association, and Yana Galang, the group’s women leader, have been selected to embark on the trip to Cameroon. The Nigerian High Commission would receive the two and would facilitate their access to the two girls, once permission to meet and verify their identity is obtained from the local authorities.
Two hundred and seventy six schoolgirls were kidnapped 713 days ago by a group of Boko Haram terrorists from their school in Chibok town, Borno state. Fifty seven of them managed to escape, while 219 are still missing. None of the girls have been officially rescued so far. The leader of the #BringBackOurGirls movement reacted to the development: