The Borno
State Government on Wednesday granted scholarship and relocated 36 schoolgirls
that escaped abduction in Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State
when Boko Haram insurgents attacked the school and abducted over 200 final year
female students on April 14.
The Borno
State Government is spending a minimum of N1.4million annual fees on each of
the schoolgirls in their new schools besides other costs for their welfare.
The
governor spoke at a brief farewell held for the girls at the Government House
in Maiduguri on Wednesday. Governor Shettima said he opted to spread the girls
in different schools so as not to make suitable, unnecessary visits that would
continue to make them subject of public focus given the global attention on
them.
Mr.
Shettima said the decision to relocate the schoolgirls was reached after
psychosocial experts, psychologists, medical doctors, interfaith religious
experts, women from civil society organizations and other trauma managers
conducted trauma management sessions for the schoolgirls at the Government
House in Maiduguri some months back and certified the girls as set for
continued education.
The
governor said while it was a hard decision to send the 36 girls back to school
when their colleagues were still in captivity, government he said, has not
given up on the girls still held. He said no sane parent would rule out a child
that is held in captivity.
Mr.
Shettima called on the schoolgirls to be of good behaviour, obey the rules of
their new schools, put their bitter experiences behind them and focus on their
studies so as to achieve their dreams in life. The Governor announced that any
of the schoolgirls that obtains a minimum of five credits will be awarded
automatic scholarship throughout her university education.
Governor
Shettima thanked parents of the 36 girls that released their children for
continued education noting that his government was deeply committed to ensuring
the girls were provided access to the best education money can offer in
Nigeria.
He said
his administration has a bias for female education which was why he introduced
a female medical education intervention programme under which 50 female
citizens drawn from the 27 local government areas of the State were granted
full scholarship to study medicine abroad while more will be sent in a
continuous exercise.
Governor
Shettima appealed to the media not to make public the new schools the girls
are attending even if they get to find out through investigations. He noted
that exposing their schools could expose them and the schools due to the global
interest in them.
The Borno
State Chairman of the Christians Association of Nigeria, Titus Pona, who is an
elder in Chibok community, was full of praises for Governor Shettima for
fulfilling his pledge of relocating the freed schoolgirls to international
schools.
Mr. Pona,
who was part of the trauma management sessions organised for the girls in June,
said it was gratifying to him that daughters of his kinsmen were given a great
opportunity to achieve great heights in life. He called on the girls to
remember the biblical sermons he preached to them during their trauma sessions
and other things they learnt.
Speaker
after speaker at the farewell ceremony also called on the schoolgirls to be
focused on their education to make themselves, their parents and Borno State
very proud at the end of the day. Culled
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