Patience Jonathan Weeps At Chibok Abduction Meeting In Abuja …Angry Over Borno First Lady’s Absence

First lady Patience Jonathan on Monday expressed displeasure at the
absence of Hajiya Nana Shettima, wife of the Borno State Governor, at a
second enlarged stakeholders’ meeting on the abducted schoolgirls.

Shettima was absent at the first meeting, which Jonathan convened on
Friday in Abuja to seek clarification on the number of girls involved.

Jonathan postponed the meeting to Sunday to enable Shettima, parents of
the abducted girls, the school’s security guard and two of the girls that
escaped, among others, attend the meeting.

However, the first lady burst into tears after she took a roll call and
discovered that the governor’s wife and those she invited were absent.

She kept on repeating: ”There is God in everything we are doing. There is
God’’.

The first lady had requested Shettima to chair the committee constituted
on Friday to seek clarification to the conflicting issues on the exact
number of missing girls.

Jonathan, however, expressed shock that the Borno State Government
appeared not to be taking the issue serious.

She said before the kidnapping and the killing started in Borno State, she
assured Shettima of her support, but was surprised that after such
incidence, Shettima did not come to see her.

“After the incidence, I waited for her, she did not come. I sent for her,
she came.

“I asked questions, no answer. I asked her to come with the principal and
parents: she did not turn up till today. To our greatest surprise, she
sent a commissioner.

“The next thing I saw was women demonstrating. No woman will fold her
hands while her house is on fire. She is the mother of Borno.

“She is the mother of these children, I am their grandmother. She should
be more concerned and come to her grandma.

“The police, army, WAEC, government officials came with a few of their own
but no parent was present to tell us their child was kidnapped or among
those who escaped.

“The mother of Borno is not concerned about what is happening, her
children are involved,” Jonathan said.

She urged Nigerian women not to take to the streets till they get to the
root of the matter.

She said, “I don’t want anybody to reply or abuse me on the pages of
newspaper. It is because we are pained and crying, that is why I am doing
so.

“Why should I cry more than the bereaved? The world will ask me a question
if I do. If after today, Borno people say we should not help them, don’t
go to the street to demonstrate.

“You are playing games. Don’t use schoolchildren and women for
demonstration again. Keep it to Borno, let it end there. Until you people
are ready to cooperate.”