Jonathan to meet with parents of abducted Chibok schoolgirls

President Goodluck Jonathan has agreed to meet with parents of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls who have been away from home for 90 days now.
He has also promised scholarship for all the abducted schoolgirls in any part of the country when they return home.

The president made the promise when he received Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani education activist girl, who became a global celebrity after surviving being shot in the head in 2012 by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education.

Malala, who is in Nigeria on the commemoration of her 17th birthday, told journalists during a briefing after the meeting that the president promised her that he will meet with the parents of the abducted girls as well as ensure that they are returned home safely.

Briefing journalists alongside the presidential media aide, Rueben Abati; her dad, Ziauddin Yousafzai and the director of operations Malala Foundation, Eason Jordan, she said she is in Nigeria to support girls’ education and advocate for the release of the Chibok girls abducted from their school, Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State on April 14.

July 14 is Malala Day, a day set aside by the United Nations for the world to focus on putting all girls in school.

She said she had met with parents of some of the girls the previous day and they had expressed the longing to meet with the president and anybody who can help them find their girls.

“I am here in Nigeria on my 17th birthday for a price which is to see that every child goes to school. This year, my objective is to speak up for my Nigerian sisters, about 200 of them, who are under the abduction of Boko Haram and I met the president, Goodluck Jonathan, for this purpose. I convey the voice of my sisters who are out of school or who are still under the abduction of Boko Haram.

And for those girls who escaped from the abduction but still do not have education. And in the meeting, I highlighted the same issues which the girls and their parents told me in the past two days. The parents said they really want to meet with the president to share their stories with him. And I asked the president that if he wants to meet with the parents of the girls, the president assured me that he would meet with them”, she said.

She added that the parents of the girls “still have this hope that there is still someone who can help them. They asked me if there is any chance for them to meet the president because at this time, they need the president’s support. I am hopeful that these two promises, the return of the girls from Boko Haram and meeting with their parents will be fulfilled and we will see it soon.”

Malala also told journalists that the Malala Fund has raised $200,000 “and we want to use it to contribute to those children’s education. We have
started working with two organisations here in Nigeria to be able to help these girls continue their education.”

The teenage human rights activist, who noted that having as much as 10.5 million children out of school in Nigeria was not encouraging as some of these children can end up as terrorists or being violated, also urged the president to increase the budgetary funding for the education sector.