‘We are absolutely not satisfied; we feel like our Chibok girls are being let down’ – Two years after the abduction of the 219 girls from their school in Chibok community, this is the sentiment of a proponent of the BringBackOurGirls advocacy, Obiageli Ezekwesili.

The advocacy was launched after the abduction of the girls on April 14 2014, and while it gained massive traction and received worldwide participation, the Nigerian government has thus far, failed to rescue the Chibok girls.

Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education, has for the last two years made the rescue of the Chibok girls her primary objective, leaving everything else in the back burner.

In an interview with The Nation, she criticised the governments of Goodluck Jonathan and incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, for having failed so far, in reuniting the abducted girls with their parents.

“You have to understand that the earlier days of the abduction where the more probable period for their rescue that notwithstanding, the current government took over when it was already a year plus of the abduction but if after seven months of the new government, we met with the President and the response to us was no credible intelligence.”

F”or whatever that meant it just didn’t come out the right way, not the right thing to say to parents who when they met with him, together with our movement previously in July, a few months after he was inaugurated into office, he gave that assurance that he was going to do his utmost to rescue our Chibok girls.”

“Seven months after, you were then told of lack of credible intelligence. I’m sorry the government of Nigeria exists to find credible intelligence. So, there is no credible intelligence, so what next?”

“Are the parents supposed to take no credible intelligence and just walk away? No, the government owes much more than that and the President needs to keep his promise to these parents and community of Chibok and to our movement that he will not consider Nigeria to have won the war against terrorism without bringing back our Chibok girls and other abducted citizens of the country.”

Ezekwesili however, admitted that the abducted girls may have been subjected to all forms of inhumane and unthinkable treatment in the hands of the Boko Haram insurgents.

“It is quite possible that all manner of things would have happened to them by now but the truth is bring ten, twenty, thirty, forty, bring even one to show that the government of Nigeria is totally committed to its citizens.”

“You see, it is so sad but a society that has always functioned not on the basis of the talents, productivity or capability of its citizens but on the basis of money from oil has a tendency to behave as if those citizens don’t matter; that is what we are saying.”

“If we were a country where citizens mattered and depended upon to drive the process of development, they will care about the citizens and do everything for the citizens because to lose 219 of them that went to school to acquire the best knowledge that they can get would be a material loss for the country and it will not be able to take it.”

“So, it will do everything to bring them back. That is why, for example, if one American is in distress, the entire American government would rather shut down and get that person out than allow that one American to be gone without a fight.”