President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday promised Miss Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was almost killed by the Taliban in her country’s Swat Valley District, that he would soon meet with parents of the abducted pupils of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
Malala had been targeted by the Taliban because of her girl child education campaign.
The Chibok girls had been kidnapped from their hostels by members of the violent Islamic sect, Boko Haram, since April 14.
Jonathan told the 17-year-old Pakistani girl that the abducted Chibok girls would soon regain their freedom and that his government would grant scholarship to the girls to study in other parts of the country.
Malala had paid the President a visit in Abuja as part of her three-day visit to Nigeria.
The teenager disclosed what transpired between her and the President to State House correspondents at the end of the closed-door session.
She said she intimated Jonathan with the subject of her earlier meetings with some of the girls that had escaped from Boko Haram custody and the parents of those who are still in captivity.
She said she also conveyed the desire of the parents to meet with the President in order to share their stories with him.
Malala expressed the belief that the President would fulfil all the promises made to her on the abducted girls.
She said, “I am here in Nigeria on my 17th birthday for a price which is to see that every child goes to school. This year, my objective is to speak up for my Nigerian sisters, about 200 of them who are in the captivity of Boko Haram and I met President Goodluck Jonathan for this purpose.
“I conveyed the voice of my sisters who are out of school or who are still under the abduction of Boko Haram. And for those girls who escaped from the abduction but still do not have education. And in the meeting, I highlighted the same issues which the girls and their parents told me in the past two days.
“The parents said they really wanted to meet with the President to share their stories with him. And I asked the President if he wanted to meet with the parents of the girls, the President assured me that he would meet with them.
“I spoke to the President about the girls who complained that they could not go to school despite the fact that they want to become doctors, engineers and teachers. But the government is not providing them any facility. They also need health facility, security and the government is not doing anything.
“Yesterday (Sunday), I also met with the parents of these girls who are still under the abduction of Boko Haram and they were crying and hopeless. But still, they have this hope that there is still someone who can help them.
“They asked me if there is any chance for them to meet the President because at this time, they need the President’s support, so I asked the President if it is possible for him to go and see them to encourage them and the President did promise me that he will meet the parents of these girls.
“I am hopeful that these two promises, the return of the girls from Boko Haram captivity and meeting with their parents will be fulfilled and we will see it soon.”
She said although she had received the assurances of the President on her requests, she would not stop talking.
Malala said she would be counting days and would be looking forward to when the abducted girls would return home.
“I can’t stop this campaign until I see those girls return back to their families and continue the agitation. This is the position of the Malala Foundation,” she declared.
She said during the meeting, Jonathan also told her some of the difficulties being faced in government’s quest to rescue the girls.
She said one of the challenges was that the girls could be targeted during military operation.
The campaigner, however expressed fears that politics could interfere in the fulfilment of the President’s promises.
“He has made promises but in politics nothing is clear. But the President said these girls are his daughters and he is pained by their sufferings and that he has his own daughters and he can feel what they are feeling.,” she said.
The Director of Operations, Malala Foundation, Eason Jordan, said President Jonathan was willing to meet with the parents of the schoolgirls any time from now.
Meanwhile, a statement by Jonathan’s spokesman, Reuben Abati, on Monday said the Federal Government had been constrained in rescuing the abducted schoolgirls by the overriding imperative of ensuring that the girls’ lives were not endangered in any rescue attempt.
Abati quoted the President as saying during the meeting with Malala that the notion that the Federal Government had not been doing enough to find and rescue the abducted girls was wrong and misplaced.
He said the government was doing everything possible to ensure that the girls were rescued alive and safely returned to their parents.
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