War over Chibok girls: Campaigners are APC –Audu Ogbeh

Mixed reactions, yesterday trailed the statement credited to a chieftain of  the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Audu Ogbeh that members of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) campaign group are APC members.

The online media is awash with the statement by Ogbeh in which he is saying that members of the group fighting the cause of the girls are APC members. He also hailed them for sustaining the fight and  ensuring that the abduction of the over 200 girls  since March, remain a big issue.

In another twist, while some political interest groups latched on to Ogbeh’s comment on the political partisanship pf the group, former education minister, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, an arrowhead of the protest, debunked Ogbeh’s statement describing it as false, unfortunate and unfounded.

A group, among those fronting for President Goodluck Jonathan’s return in 2015 issued a statement attacking the APC as having “confirmed its sponsorship of the Bring Back Our Girls, #BBOG campaigns which activities have called to question, the genuineness of the group’s intentions.

Notwithstanding the widespread online accreditation of Ogbeh’s statement, Daily Sun called him severally in order to confirmed if the statement actually emanated from him. Ogbeh, however, responded to the call later, but explained that he never said the campaigners are members of the APC, rather he called them the conscience of the people of Nigeria who still keep alive the bad effect of the incident. “If they are members of the party and I said so, I can never deny it later,” he affirmed.

He wondered why the Federal Government and other highly-placed Nigerians consider the protesters enemies instead of aligning with their agitation.

On her part, Ezekwesili, as the leader of the group, decried the comment online “I take very strong exception to what is being credited to Mr. Audu Ogbe of the APC; another tragic blow in making the chibok girls, political pawns. I am neither covertly or overtly a member of the APC, PDP or any other party. It is false and wrong to say BBOG Nigeria is led by members of APC. If Mr. Ogbe is being correctly quoted, he can only be referring to their members who are part of BBOG Nigeria. Never has there been any speck of political party consideration in anything that the strategic team of the group that I chair, does.”

BBOG emerged following the kidnap of about 219 students from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State by members of the Boko Haram insurgency group, six months ago.

Ogbeh, a former national chairman of the PDP was said to have made the statement on  Wednesday in Abuja at the formal declaration of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari for next year’s  presidential election.

Commending the campaigners and hailing them for sustaining the global attention on the missing girls, Ogbeh said: “We send our greetings to the Chibok parents. We believe that one day they will be reunited with their children. We commend the Bring Back Our Girls movement led by members of our party for their commitment. They remain the only living witnesses that Nigeria still has a conscience.” The APC leader underscored the foregoing by daring the federal government to arrest the #BBOG campaigners and “all of us,” Ogbeh was quoted as saying.