Wednesday, May 10, 2017

One of the girls refused peace dealbecause of marriage

One of the kidnapped schoolgirls refused to be part of those to be released because she had marriedone of the Boko Haram fighters, according to Garba Shehu, one of the spokesmen for President Muhammadu Buhari.Shehu stated that the militants had agreed to the release of 83 of the teenagers, who were abducted from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014.Speaking onChannels Televisionon Tuesday, he said, “One said, ‘No, I have a husband. I’m happy where I am’; and then, 82 came back.”Shehu said the government was working to verify the identities of the 82, so they could be reunited with their families as soon as possible.“Names of the released girls have been published already but we do not want a repeat of duplications that we had when the first set of 21 girls were released.“Because of similarities in names, we had two or three sets of parents coming on the assumptions that the girls mentioned were theirs. We don’t want to create that confusion,” he stated.He added that the Federal Government would not stop any parent from immediately establishing contact with their daughters.Rather than stopping them from meeting their daughters, the presidential spokesman said government would facilitate a quick reunion.Shehu said, “Yesterday (Monday), photographs of all the girls were taken. These pictures were printedand dispatched to Chibok.“These young ladies did not all come from Chibok township itself but some from various settlements scattered around the town.”He explained that once the parentsget the pictures and verify the identities of their daughters, they are free to come to Abuja to meet with their daughters.Shehu described the long distance between Abuja and Chibok as another challenge, saying the journey by road would take two days.

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