More than a year after the Boko Haram sect
abducted 219 Chibok girls, Mrs. Graca Machel, widow of the late former South African President, Nelson Mandela, met with parents of the schoolgirls.

Machel met with some of the girls’ parents in Lagos
on Friday and urged them to remain strong, reported the BBC.

She said the world had not forgotten about the girls.
Seventeen of the girls’ parents have died since their
abduction, but Machel, who is a prominent child
rights activist, said she usually speaks about the girls
wherever she goes.

“I shook hands with all of you and feel what is in your
blood… I share the pain with you of not knowing
when the girls will come back,” she reportedly told
the parents.
She also urged Nigerian and the international
community to do more to free the missing girls.

The meeting was organised by the Murtala
Muhammed Foundation to support the parents as
they deal with the trauma caused by the April 14,
2014 incident.

Though the Nigerian Army has rescued hundreds of
hostages from Boko Haram, none of the kidnapped
schoolgirls have been found.

An international human rights group, Amnesty
International, stated in a report recently that at least
2,000 women and girls had been abducted by the
Boko Haram sect since 2014.

On efforts made to mount pressure on the Federal
Government to find and rescue the abducted girls,
the leader of the Bring Back Our Girls Group, Mrs.
Oby Ezekwesili, said the group had met with Vice-
President Yemi Osinbajo.

“Hope makes not ashamed and so we stand on. We
demand on,” she wrote on Twitter.

In a similar vein, Lagos State Governor, Mr.
Akinwunmi Ambode, said on Friday that the African
Leadership Foundation, led by Machel, will establish
the African Leadership University in Lagos in 2016.
Ambode said this at the Lagos House, Ikeja when he
received a delegation of the ALF, according to a
statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the
Governor, Mr. Habib Aruna.

The governor said he would do everything possible to
ensure that the university begins operation in 2016.

The governor said he was delighted to welcome
Machel, who is the inaugural chancellor of the
university to Lagos, adding that he would
immediately engage with the leadership of the
foundation to take the partnership to greater heights.