Chibok girls: Minister reveals when FG’s rehabilitation programme will end

Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Alhassan, has said that the federal government’s special rehabilitation programme for the 106 Chibok girls rescued from Boko Haram will end in September 2017.
She dismissed reports that some of the girls are being kept against their will and without the consent of the parents.

The Minister stated this in Abuja during lunch with the girls at the weekend.
According to her, the rehabilitation programme was not to deprive relatives access to the girls but to help them seamlessly re-integrate with the wider Nigerian society.
She also added that the government is holding discussions with a private university, where some of the escaped girls have already undergone remedial classes and are about to start university education.

She said: “It is a new dawn for the 106 Chibok girls rescued from Boko Haram captivity as their special rehabilitation programme is expected to end this September after which they will return to school.
“We have never stopped any girl from seeing her parents and we have never kept any child against her will.
“They are all here on their consent and on the understanding that they will do this programme, get well, recover fully psychologically and then go back to school.

“We are not keeping them for anything else. We are doing a programme for their recovery and we thank God that they have fully recovered; they are very anxious to go back to school.”