The federal government has finally confirmed that 110 Dapchi school girls remain unaccounted for, following an attack on their school in Yobe State, about a week ago.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, announced the figure after a meeting between a Federal Government Delegation and representatives of key stakeholders, including the state government, the college, the parents, security agencies and Bursari local government, where Dapchi is situated, in Damaturu on Sunday.
“The Federal Government has confirmed that 110 students of the
Government Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe State, are so
far unaccounted for, after insurgents believed to be from a faction of
Boko Haram invaded their school on Monday (19 Feb. 2018),”read a statement from Mohammed’s office Sunday evening.
The minister said, based on the briefings from the Principal of the College,
Adama Abdulkarim, and the state Commissioner for Education,
Mohammed Lamin, 906 students – out of whom 110 have not been accounted
for – were in the school on the day of the attack.
Mohammed also announced that the Federal Government has
directed the police and civil defence authorities in Yobe State to
immediately deploy their personnel to all the schools in the state in
order to ensure the security and safety of the students and their
staffers.
The Minister, however, assured that the Federal Government, however assured that has stepped up efforts to rescue the girls and return them safely to their parents, saying the security agencies are working on many leads regarding the
whereabouts of the girls.
”This is the second time in four days that a Federal Government
delegation would visit Yobe State since the unfortunate incident. This
is a measure of the seriousness with which we are addressing the
issue. The security forces are leaving no stone unturned in their
search for the girls.
”We are back here in Yobe as part of efforts to provide some succo
to the parents of the girls, to let them know that they are not alone
and also to reassure them that we will not rest until we have found
the girls. We will carry the parents along on the efforts we are
making,” he said.
For a few years now, Nigeria’s North East region has come under heavy attack by the Boko Haram, an extremist, Islamic, terrorist organization, which President Buhari’s government claims to have decimated and dislodged.
The attack on Dapchi school girls is coming almost four years after about 276 female students were kidnapped from the Government Secondary School in the Chibok town in Borno State.
Buhari last Wednesday directed the ministers of defence, Mansur Dan-Ali; information, Lai Mohammed; and foreign affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, to visit Dapchi village in Yobe to assess the reported abduction of schoolgirls.
According to the statement, the Federal Government delegation, which comprised the Ministers of Information and Culture as well as that of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, held an enlarged meeting that was
attended by Governor Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe State; members of the
state cabinet, the Principal and Vice Principal of the school,
representatives of the parents of the missing girls and security
agencies, among others.
Dambazau, Minister of Interior also speaking after the meeting said the delegation embarked on the trip in order to get the facts right ”so that the approach to the solution can be correct”.
”We must get back the girls and also ensure that this does not happen
again,” he said.
Onyinye Nwachukwu, Abuja
