Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State on Saturday presented N100,000 cash assistance and clothing materials to each of the parents of the 219 girls abducted at the Government Secondary School, Chibok.
He presented the items while interacting with the parents in Maiduguri, noting that the gesture was a directive from President Muhammadu Buhari.
“I met with the president last Thursday in Abuja and he directed that I should meet you and console you over the missing girls.
“The president urged me to extend his heart-felt greetings to you on the issue,’’ he said.
Shettima added that Buhari assured him that the missing girls would soon be rescued going by the renewed military offensive on the insurgents.
“The president assured me that the missing girls would soon be re-united with their families as efforts are being intensified to rescue them,’’ he said.
Shettima said that it was based on that grounds that he invited the parents for the interaction at the Government House, Maiduguri, to deliver the message.
He said that the abduction of the girls had affected the livelihood of the parents as some of them had not been able to engage in any economic activities since the incident occurred.
“The money is not a ransom or a kind of compensation for the missing girls; it is to provide a kind of relief to the parents, who have been devastated by the loss of their children,’’ he said.
He said that government would unfold a plan for rehabilitating the girls once they were rescued by the military.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Boko Haram insurgents abducted the girls on the night of April 14, 2014.
