LAGOS, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday said his government will do what is needed to help the remaining abducted schoolgirls reunite with their families.
"As president, as a Nigerian and a parent, I share the agony of every Nigerian whose loved ones are in the hands of abductors, therefore, government will do the needful to reunite these girls with their families," the Nigerian leader said in Maiduguri, capital of restive northeast Borno state.
The president told his audience that his administration was committed to freeing other persons abducted by Boko Haram insurgents, as well as those kidnapped by other criminals.
"Boko Haram insurgents abducted the girls from Chibok and Dapchi. Unfortunately, some of these girls are still being held captive; we will not give up on them," he said.
"Since 2016, the federal government had been making effort with stakeholders in the northeast to significantly end insurgency in the region," he said.
The president said the relative peace achieved offered the Borno state government the opportunity to initiate viable projects in areas of housing and road development, agriculture, industry, as well as education.
The president added that the priority attention accorded the education sector by the state government was imperative in view of the security challenges posed by the Boko Haram insurgents, whose ideology opposed formal school system.
"I am pleased that some of the newly constructed schools will be exclusively for girl-child. This is a wise and definitive response to Boko Haram ideology," he said.
In April 2014, Boko Haram militants kidnapped more than 270 girls from their school in Chibok in northeastern Nigeria. So far most of them have been released or managed to escape, while scores of them are still held captive.
Boko Haram militants stormed the town of Dapchi in Yobe state in February 2018, and took away more than 100 girls from a local boarding school. Most of the girls had been released later and at least one of them is still in the militants' hands.
