The leaders of the Chibok community in Abuja on Wednesday accused the presidency of exposing the community to ridicule, after it became public the government splashed millions of naira on parents of the over 250 schoolgirls abducted in the remote Borno State town more than three months ago.
In a statement Wednesday, the Chibok leaders confirmed that at least N22.4 million was shared to the parents and the girls, and accused the presidency of exposing the community that has been under a global spotlight over the abductions, to “reproach and dishonour”. “While we acknowledge that any well intended support for our suffering population which has lost means of livelihood since the events of April 14 and subsequent attacks could be welcome,” the leaders said, “however the approach that the presidency adopted has brought reproach and dishonour to our community in the eyes of the public that has supported us since the abduction of our daughters.”
Writing under the name Kibaku Area Development Area Development Association, KADA, the group narrated how a senior aide of President Jonathan sneaked into an unnamed Abuja hotel where the parents and the girls were lodged, late in the night, to share the largesse. “On the night of the 22nd July, 2014 at about midnight, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Special Duties who had been co-ordinating the visit on the side of the Presidency, visited the hotel and told the 51 escaped girls who came that the Presidency sent them a token of N100, 000.00 each and accordingly gave them the said sum without prior discussion with any KADA official or any other person in the community,” the group said.
The Chibok group said the presidential aide distributed the money despite its earlier warning that the organization did not want to be associated with any monetary transaction during the visit. “We clearly spelt out to the Presidency through the office of the Chief of Staff that we shall not be involved with any financial transaction whatsoever, including payment of transportation from Chibok to Yola, flight by air from Yola to Abuja, hotel accommodation and feeding in Abuja, intra-city transportation while in Abuja,” they said.
Reports that President Goodluck Jonathan handed N100 million to the distraught parents, when they visited him in Abuja last week, emerged Tuesday after some of the parents complained of being shortchanged when the money was shared. In details published by the BBC, the aggrieved parents said they were either underpaid or not given anything at all. While some parents were given N200, 000, others received N100, 000, while some went home empty-handed, they told the BBC Hausa service.
