From Magnus Eze, Abuja

In response to the request by the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) campaigners for the shift of the guided tour of the North East scheduled to commence today, the Federal Government yesterday insisted that the trip must go on.
Responding to a letter by leader of the group, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, requesting that the trip be postponed until the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Buratai, apologised to the group over a statement describing the BBOG as engaging in “social advocacy terrorism,” the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said it was not possible to abort the trip, given the arrangements already in place.
The Federal Government had, in a communication by Mohammed, dated January 11, 2017, invited the BBOG group to nominate two of its members to join a guided tour of the North East taking off by 8.30am today.
According to the letter, “the trip being planned by the military will see the Ministers of Defence and Information & Culture, the Chief of Air Staff and Chief of Army Staff joining the invited BBOG members and a select group of journalists.
“They will first go to the Nigerian Air Force Command Centre in Yola to witness, first-hand, the efforts being made to search for the girls by NAF and then join the day and night sorties with the BAF to the Sambisa Forest.”
Justifying why the trip must hold as slated, in a letter dated January 14, 2017 to the BBOG convener, the minister said: “The need to proceed with the trip on Monday is predicated on the narrow window available to have a good weather on that day.”
In addition, he explained that the payment for the satellite downlink streaming of the mission had been made for today, hence shifting the date will require another round of booking to secure such a slot.
He further noted that apart from the BBOG members, local and international journalists were also invited for the trip, while the military had already been fully mobilised for the exercise.
Mohammed appealed to the Ezekwesili-led group to drop its conditions and join the trip, while giving assurance that the statement purportedly credited to the Chief of Army Staff and the group’s request for a meeting with some top officials of the government should not supersede the import of the invitation to the BBOG to join the search mission.
According to him, the trip further “shows the commitment of the Federal Government to securing freedom for the Chibok girls and its transparency in handling the issue of the girls.”