KOREDE FOGO
The erstwhile Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman, has said she never abandoned the call for the release of Chibok School girls.
The erstwhile NPA MD was speaking against the backdrop of viral media reports where critics sneered at her over her recent tweets on the release of Chibok girls, saying mischievous people dug up the February tweets attributing it to what led to her eventual suspension.
She, however, stated that even as MD of NPA, she never abandoned the call for the release of the abducted Chibok School girls and need for government to take action to ensure their release.
Bala-Usman further stated that in the wake of her suspension in May last year, Nigerians dug up a February 27th, 2021, tweet from her, which reads: ‘the state of insecurity in the country that has led to the kidnap of Kagara boys Zamfara girls need to be addressed URGENTLY.
“We can’t go on like this! Rescue our children and secure our country; that’s all we ask.”
She, however, said the tweet was the reason for her suspension.
In her recent tweets, Hadiza Bala Usman has condemned the spate of insecurity in the country while calling on the government to step up efforts towards the release of all captives in the kidnappers’ dens.
However, the former NPA MD, in the statement, noted that she never stopped campaigning for the release of Chibok girls and other abducted Nigerians.
She said this fact could be verified through tweets made on her handle @hadizabalausman where she spoke about the Chibok girls, the Kangara boys, and other security issues in the country over the past four years.
Bala-Usman further said that there was never a time she stopped campaigning for the release of Chibok girls, even while she was at the NPA.
“If I posted that tweet about the country’s security situation just a few weeks after the renewal of my appointment as Managing Director of the NPA in 2021, how then can anyone accuse me of just coming to speak up now? Or is it just another targeted attack on my person, sponsored by desperate people who have tried and failed to tarnish my image in the last one year.
“Because just a mere check on my Twitter handle would have revealed the truth but they decided to proceed with promoting falsehood.”
Bala Usman noted that her conviction about the Chibok girls and every Nigerian in captivity had remained the same since the unfortunate trend started.
“It is such that my official picture at the NPA had my BBOG badge. I attended several meetings with the President wearing my badge. I spoke about the Chibok girls and other Nigerians in captivity at every opportunity I had, including with other colleagues in government and during media interviews,” she said.
She said that her conviction and insistence about the release of the captives in the dens of insurgents and kidnappers as well as her constant tweets on the insecurity in the country, even while in office as the NPA MD, was what earned her suspension.