Hadiza Buhari dismisses BBOG's allegations: 'No law prevents our organisation from assisting Chibok girls'
The Africa Support and Empowerment
Initiative (AFRISEI) has debunked allegations of franchise infringement
by the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) advocacy group.
The
BBOG group via statement
jointly signed by Aisha Yesufu and Oby Ezekwesili had dissociated itself
from the fund-raising event organised by Hadiza Buhari-Bello,
daughter of Nigeria’s president and founder of (AFRISEI)
The event tagged "Official Inauguration and
Signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the Chibok Girls
Endowment Project" held at the Peace Corps of Nigeria Headquarters, seeks to assist the recently released Chibok schoolgirls. While demanding an immediate retraction and
unreserved apology from the organisers of the event, the BBOG also urged
the general public to disregard attempts at linking the group to the
event.
However,
in a statement co-signed by Mrs Hadiza Buhari-Bello and Secretary of
the NGO, Mr Onwuka Don Uche, they said that contrary to the allegations
made by Yesufu and Ezekwesili, AFRISEI did not need to lean on the BBOG
to be of service to the Chibok girls.
They maintained that they had no reason “to steal anything from BBOG or use its name to achieve any advantage,"
“The Africa Support and Empowerment
Initiative has its own defined objectives and that it didn’t need to
steal anybody’s ideas to operate in line with its own objectives’’.
While praising the activities of the BBOG to
raise and sustain awareness about the plight of the kidnapped Chibok
schoolgirls, the President’s daughter said that their organisation had
broader objectives beyond the Chibok girls.
They said though the Chibok girls were
within the priority of their organisation, their commitments to
humanitarian causes did not end with Chibok schoolgirls.
“Given the size of the problem at hand, the
more organisations we have assisting Chibok and other devastated
communities, the better for the country,’’ they said.
According to them, as a charitable
organisation, AFRISEI is committed to empowering the youth and the less
privileged in the area of job creation and skill acquisition.
“It is also committed to supporting the
education of the less privileged students, giving material support to
the downtrodden; the internally displaced persons.
“AFRISEI is committed to educating the
masses to discourage unhealthy practices such as child trafficking,
child abuse, child labour and gender discrimination’’.
The AFRISEI president and secretary said
there was no law that prevented their organisation from assisting the
Chibok schoolgirls, adding that as a charity organisation, they offered
help to people in distress, including the Chibok girls and the Boko
Haram victims.
They noted that AFRISEI was duly registered
with the Corporate Affairs Commission and issued certificate of
incorporation on July 14, and hence would never engage in illegal
activities by stealing someone else’s franchise.
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