#BringBackOurGirls campaigners change meeting venue after attack

The new venue is in Maitama.

Campaigners demanding greater government action to free more than 200 girls abducted by extremist Boko Haram more than a month ago have changed the venue of their daily sit-in after coming under attack from pro-government protesters.

The meeting point was moved from Unity Fountain near the Trasncorp Hilton hotel, to Maitama Amusement Park, both in central Abuja.

The protesters were attacked on Wednesday at the Unity Fountain by a group calling on Boko Haram, instead of the government, to release the missing girls.

The group is said to be supported by the government.

The assailants fought with some of the protesters, broke their chairs and destroyed reporter’s cameras.

On Thursday, the #BrignBackOurGirls campaigners, led by a former education minister, Oby Ezekwesili, and civil rights activist, Jibrin Ibrahim, defied the attacks and held a symposium at Thisday Dome.

The National symposium, which was also called the Democracy day event adopted the theme “citizens, accountability and democracy”.

“We do not want to encourage anyone to divert our attention, to distract us and therefore we have peacefully relocated our spot to Maitama Amusement Gardens,” said Ms. Ezekwesili.

She said it was clear their attackers sought to provoke the protesters to fracas.

“It is very clear that the objective of the group that has taken over the Unity Fountain is to provoke us to a place of a fracas and we are determined that the Bringbackourgirls Abuja family citizens advocacy group will not engage in any confrontation with anybody”