Hoodlums Attack ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ Campaign Group

Hoodlums numbering about 20 yesterday attacked members of the Oby Ezekwesili-led ‘Bring Back Our Girls Campaign Group’ at the Unity Fountain, Abuja, during its usual 3pm meeting, breaking chairs, cameras and tripods of journalists covering the event. The boys who surprisingly were wearing T.shirts with the #Bring Back Our Girls incriptions stormed the venue and ordered journalists to put away their cameras before destroying the chairs of the group while the police around the area watched. The boys attacked the group twice and later dispersed following the intervention of the police. Earlier, other groups that called themselves ‘market women’ and other women groups had stormed the fountain, chanting ‘Boko Haram, Release Our Girls now’ and disrupting the group’s meeting . The ‘market women’ marched around the group chanting, ringing bells and blowing whistles. One of the women, who spoke under anoymity stated that she came from Kubwa market, and disclosed that they were promised N5000 but that she was only able to get N2,200 yesterday when she attended the event. “I just hope that we can get more today. It was our leader in the market that told us to come, so we came. Since we were promised money, I decided to come. I left my market (wares) there. I know I won’t have made that money if I was in the market,” she said. Speaking about the incident, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili accused the police of sitting and watching while hoodlums destroyed the group’s property and disrupted its meeting. She informed one of the policemen, CSP Husseini Dodo who stated that the commissioner of police had sent them to protect the group, that the group has sent a letter to the commissioner of police and the IG to inform them of the disruption by some groups and wondered why the police arrived after the…. continued