Hadiza Bala Usman, former managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), has insisted that she never stopped campaigning for the rescue of Chibok school girls abducted by Boko Haram in 2014 during her time in office.
Bala Usman, a co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement which emerged following the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from the Chibok town of Borno State, was appointed to head NPA in July 2016.
She held the position until her suspension from the role in 2021, and during that period, not much was heard from her regarding the fate of the abducted girls.
Recently, she sent out a tweet advocating for their rescue, which led to many attacking her on the social media platform for, according to them, abandoning the girls while she was in government.
However, in a statement issued on Wednesday, Bala Usman said she has remained committed to the quest for the rescue of the Chibok girls even as NPA MD.
The former NPA chief said she attended several meetings with Buhari wearing her #BringBackOurGirls badge, adding that she spoke and tweeted about the security situation in the country while she was a government appointee.
“If I posted that tweet about the country’s security situation just a few weeks after the renewal of my appointment as Managing Director of the NPA in 2021, how then can anyone accuse me of just coming to speak up now? Or is it just another targeted attack on my person, sponsored by desperate people who have tried and failed to tarnish my image in the last one year. Because just a mere check on my Twitter handle would have revealed the truth, but they decided to proceed with promoting falsehood,” Bala Usman said.
“It is such that my official picture at the NPA had my BBOG badge. I attended several meetings with the President wearing my badge. I spoke about the Chibok girls and other Nigerians in captivity at every opportunity I had, including with other colleagues in government and during media interviews.”