A front line member of the #Bring Back Our Girls, Dr. Allen Manasseh, on Wednesday, said, his group did not make any statement with regards to the new video released by the Abubakar Shekau – led faction of the Boko Haram because they believe it was the usual propaganda by the sect to put the girls under duress to speak what they were told to speak.
According to Dr. Manasseh, BBOG’s biggest problem now is the Nigerian government’s continuous silence on the issue of abductions of both the university lecturers, the police women and the Chibok girls. He said hthe group was planing a sit-out to commemorate the four years since the abduction of the Chibok girls.
He said, “what the Chibok girls in the new video released on Sunday are saying is not their own words but what the Boko Haram leadership wants them to say. As such, we have nothing to say about that, we take it as their usual way of expressing themselves (the Boko Haram).
” If truly the Chibok girls don’t want to return as they claimed, we could not have been hearing a different stories from those who escaped recently. You remember one of the Chibok girls was found recently and a number of them rescued are here with us. We know their stories, and we cannot be deceived by the new video.
“Yes, the girls are with them. Yes, they made a statement, but that is under duress. We all know about it. Let me tell you something, the consent of the girls were not sought for when they were abducted. They were forced into whatever marriage that took place in the Sambisa forest.
” Everything they said was speaking the mind of their abductors. The Boko Haram has their own legal wives, which they got married to before the insurgency. These women legally married to have also been escaping from the forest and we have their stories. What makes anyone believe that, the Chibok Girls would not want freedom? Given a choice they would all leave and return home. That is why we are insisting that, the Nigerian government should act now.
“We believe that, no amount of indoctrination can change these girls, who were abducted with a barrel of guns into accepting their current position on free will. There was never a choice in the beginning and that is our position.” Dr. Allen added.
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