Exactly 120 days after terrorists bombed the AK-9 train conveying hundreds of passengers from Abuja to Kaduna; families of the surviving 41 persons still in captivity yesterday, slammed First Lady and Wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, Aisha Buhari, accusing her of abandoning her motherly role, unlike her predecessor, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, who rose to the occasion in similar circumstances a few years ago.
Family members of the victims as early as 8AM, Monday, besieged the Federal Ministry of Transportation headquarters, Abuja, preventing staff including top management officers from accessing their offices.
With mats spread at the entrance gate, they dared any staff of the Ministry to cross the barricade and for over four hours, they kept faith with their threat.
Interjecting while the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Transportation, Dr. Magdalene Ajani was addressing the protesters, a family member Hajia Hadiza Mohammed chided Mrs. Aisha Buhari for giving up her motherly responsibility of empathy, for politics at a time family members are grieving over the fate of their loved ones held captive by terrorists.
Recalling Mrs. Jonathan famous lamentation “Chai, there is God o,” when 276 school girls were kidnapped from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state in 2014 by members of Boko Haram Sect, Mrs. Mohammed noted that the then First Lady earned applause for her motherly care unlike her successor today.
She said: “When Patience Jonathan was the First Lady of this country, she came out and she cried and her statement has now become a slogan in this country. What is our First Lady doing? Is she not a mother? Is she not a grandmother? For once, she has never come out to say anything to anybody. She has not done anything. She is there canvassing for women to come out and contest (elections). Half of the population that came out to vote in this country were women. She (Aisha) is there sitting wherever she is. She will come back to meet us here. Soldiers come, soldiers come, and barracks remain. My belief is that what goes around comes around.”
Mrs. Mohammed further noted that her little relatives were captured in the recent video released by the gunmen on Sunday, where they were seen flogging their victims.
“Madam (addressing the Permanent Secretary), do you know that those four little kids in the video that were running after their mothers when they were flogging their fathers, are my nephews and nieces? Do you know the trauma they will face when they get out of that place? Beating their fathers in their presence and teaching them how to be violent (is terrible),” she lamented
Also speaking, another family member of the abductees, Ahmed Ibrahim Aruwa said the terrorists have reached out to the families demanding N100m each to release the victims. With 41 members in their den, this brings the total sum of money being demanded to N4.1 bn (Four billion, one hundred million naira only).”
Aruwa told newsmen the reason the families chose to storm the Transportation Ministry on Monday morning, saying, “We are here to press for the release of our loved ones who are in captivity in the kidnappers’ den in the bush. There was a promise that government will get them released but up till this moment, it has been promises and nothing more. We came here because the Transportation Ministry is directly in charge of the train station where our loved ones boarded. The challenge is that they are undergoing tremendous difficulty to the extent that their lives are being threatened. They are threatening to eliminate them. This is because they feel that nobody is talking on their behalf especially the government.
“They (terrorists) told us that government has not done anything to address their demands. We are worried because they are asking for N100m on each person and there are 41 of them left. How can we raise N100m on each of these persons? That is why we are here to plead with the Minister in charge to talk to the President. We know that if he talks to the President, they will come up with a formula to get our loved ones released,” he added.
In a separate chat with Vanguard, Isah Ibrahim whose brother is one of those being held recounted his ordeal tearfully this way: “I was supposed to be with my brother in the train that day but I had an urgent thing to do in Abuja so he had to go. Unfortunately for him and other persons, they were carted away. We have been to the Ministry several times but information is not coming out. The government needs to tell us what they are doing. They have to relate to us. We have been seeking audience. We have come here as individual families, as collective families and as a group, yet no information till now- no credible information of where they are and when they will be reunited with us,” he noted.
Also speaking, Mohammed Garba whose relative is in the terrorists’ custody flayed the President Buhari-led administration, saying, “’no government should do this to its people, even if it is one person. We know how things happen all over the world. This is not right and we are here and will remain here today, tomorrow in sunshine and in rain. If you saw what happened in that video, I don’t think you would have been able to sleep.”
Dr. Ajani who succeeded in dousing tension before the arrival of the Minister of Transportation told the grieving families that the Ministry was in close collaboration with the security agencies to ensure the safe release of the 41 persons still in captivity.
She said, “I am part of this and I feel the pain that you people feel because I know what it means to have your relatives in the bush. We are working with the security people. Even up to the weekend, the Hon. Minister still spoke to me, I mean the new Minister. The old ones had a lot of interactions while they were there. For the first release, they were there in Kaduna to see them before they were brought to reunite with their family members. We are in dialogue with them. The government has not forgotten us
“This Morning (Monday) when they told me what was happening; I called the Minister who lost his brother. I know you people have read it in the papers. I plead with you. I am going through this pain with you and I am not talking as Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation. I am talking about the fact that my sister is there.” She was later reminded that the said sister has regained her freedom.
The Permanent Secretary assured the families of government’s commitment to the release of the victims as soon as possible.
“The negotiators have been in the bush for three weeks. We are in touch with the security agencies,” she added.
In spite of the pleadings by Dr. Ajani, the protesters stuck to their guns until the Minister, Muazu Jaji Sambo arrived the Ministry Headquarters to personally interface with them. Dressed in all white, Sambo whose younger brother, Jaáfaru died last week pleaded with the families to give him time to settle down in office and take briefings from the relevant quarters.
“I can assure you that we will stop at nothing until the last person is released. I have not received any briefing, so how can I give you a time frame with which this issue will be over? When I get the briefing, I should be able to tell you ‘give me so-so time.’ I am pleading with you to give me a chance. I have to go and contact the security agencies,” he pleaded.
Speaking on behalf of the entire families, Imran Ahmed told the Minister that though their intention was to completely ground activities in the Ministry, his intervention and assurances he said, have prevailed on them to give him a chance, saying, “we came to sit here until our family members are released. After due consultation, we have decided to give you some breathing space. I hope and believe that we won’t have cause to come here again,” he said.
