By Ibrahim Ramalan
Abuja
The federal government has urged the Bring Back Our Girls Group to see it (government) as a partner rather than an adversary in the group’s quest to secure the release of the Chibok girls.
In a statement in Abuja yesterday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the BBOG’s continued portrayal of the government as an adversary and the needless firing of darts at the President, who is doing his utmost best to bring the girls back home safely, are ultimately counter-productive.
It bread in part: “The federal government has bent over backwards to carry the BBOG along and to show transparency in the conduct of the search for the girls. The recent invitation extended to the group to witness first-hand the search for the girls by the Nigerian Air Force is a clear indication of this.
“However, it came to us as a surprise that in spite of its initial positive report on the tour, the BBOG has too quickly reverted to its adversarial role. BBOG should stick to its role as an advocacy group rather than pretending to be an opposition party. The synonyms of the word ‘advocacy’ do not include ‘antagonism,’ ‘opposition’ or ‘attack.’
In fact, those words are the antonyms of ‘advocacy.
“Let me say unequivocally that the people involved in the negotiations are working 24/7. The negotiations are complicated, tortuous and delicate. Any wrong signal is capable of derailing things. That’s why the less we say about the talks the better it is for all.
“We need a huge amount of confidence-building, the kind of which led to the release of the 21 of the girls. This has been lacking for years, but right now we are confident that we are on the right track.
We won’t do anything to jeopardise these talks, irrespective of the pressure or provocation from any quarter.”
