“Bring Back Our Girls” co-founder Obiageli Ezekwesili lamented Tuesday night that hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Islamist group Boko Haram last year are still missing, during an emotional speech at the TIME 100 gala.

“How can we be in a world where technology can find you in your bedroom and today we have nothing on the matter of our 219 girls?” the TIME 100 honoree said in remarks that brought some attendees to tears.

“There’s absolutely nothing that the God I believe in cannot do,” she said. “But the same God has given man and woman the power of choice. Whatever we choose to do, we can accomplish. Let’s choose to bring our girls back, please?”

Earlier in the night she called on President Barack Obama to do more to help find the girls.

The former minister of education expressed confidence in President Obama’s capacity to do more to rescue the Chibok girls, who were abducted by Boko Haram in April 2014.

Speaking at the gala night, Ezekwesili said, “If he (Obama) could get Osama bin Laden, he could get our girls. It is time for someone as powerful as Barack Obama to compare the girls of Chibok to his own daughters. These girls are a symbol of our own message to girls, that they should be educated, that we would go beyond the call of duty for you.

The #BringBackOurGirls group had celebrated the inclusion of Ezekwesili in the 2015 TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.

Reacting to the award which was given to her due to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign she is championing, one of the members of the group, Emman Shehu, had noted that with this recognition, it is obvious that the campaign for the girls is yielding fruit internationally.