By Ukandi Odey
Jos
It was uncontrolled wailing and free flow of tears yesterday at the Government House, Rayfield, Jos, as women in Plateau state staged a protest to decry the abduction of over 200 school girls of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state, by the Boko Haram sect.
Dressed in black and numbering about 300, the women, of various socio-cultural groups mostly of Christian and Islamic religious persuasions, marched all the way from the Air Force Roundabout through the Gold and Base Junction to Rayfield where they were received at the Government House by the deputy governor, Ignatius Longjan.
Led by Pastor Mrs Esther Ibanga, the women, who carried placards bearing different messages, said they staged the protest under the aegis of Plateau Women Solidarity Movement, and that they were sad and appalled by the heinous activities of the Boko Haram sect, especially the recent abduction of school girls.
Presenting the resolutions of the group amidst tension generated by sobs and tearful emotion, Mrs Ibanga said the women in the country had been so devastated, and called on the federal government to, in the circumstances, erect a special care scheme for women and girls, “establish a trauma management centre for psycho-therapeutics, and to urgently refurbish and rehabilitate the state and security of secondary schools, amongst others.”
Responding, Longjan assured them that the state and federal governments shared in their grief and pains, explaining that the federal government and agencies of state security had been working very hard to “see that the abducted children are secured and released alive.”
Longjan said the challenge I”s delicate and the security agencies have been very careful so as not to compromise the lives of the traumatised children.”
He also assured that the latest international collaboration involving other countries would yield positive results “soon.”