President Muhammadu Buhari
• Alhassan accused of lacking empathy for Chibok parents
Tobi Soniyi in Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered another investigation into the abduction of 219 girls from Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State.
The girls were abducted from their dormitory 601 days ago by the jihadist group, Boko Haram, which has unleashed a wave of terror in mostly northeastern Nigeria for seven years.
Their kidnapping caused global outrage and promises by several Western nations to help in the rescue of the girls, which were never fulfilled.
A statement by the president’s media aide, Mr. Garba Shehu, said the panel to investigate the incident which happened on April 14, 2014, would soon be announced by the National Security Adviser (NSA), Major-General Babagana Munguno (rtd).
The statement said: “The investigation will seek to, among other things, unravel the remote and immediate circumstances leading to the kidnap of the girls by Boko Haram terrorists as well as the other events, actions and inactions that followed the incident.”
The president had earlier assured the parents of the Chibok girls, who met with him yesterday in Abuja under the auspices of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group, and said that he had been doing his best and would continue to do everything possible to rescue them and re-unite them with their families.
Speaking at the meeting attended by some parents of the abducted girls, representatives of the Chibok community and members of the BBOG movement at the State House, Abuja, Buhari said he remained fully committed to his pledge to do all within his powers to save the girls.
“I assure you that I go to bed and wake up everyday with the Chibok girls on my mind. The unfortunate incident happened before this government came into being.
“What have we done since we assumed office? We reorganised the military, removed all the service chiefs, and ordered succeeding service chiefs to deal decisively with the Boko Haram insurgency.
“In spite of the terrible economic condition we found ourselves in, we tried to get some resources to give to the military to reorganise and equip, retrain, deployed more troops and moved more forcefully against Boko Haram.
“And you all know the progress we have made. When we came in, Boko Haram was in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno. Boko Haram has now been reduced to areas around Lake Chad.
“Securing the Chibok girls is my responsibility. The service chiefs and heads of our security agencies will tell you that in spite of the dire financial strait that we found the country in, I continue to do my best to support their efforts in that regard.
“This is a Nigeria where we were exporting an average of two million barrels per day at over $140 per barrel. Now it is down to about $27 to $30 a barrel.
“You have been reading in the press how they took public funds, our funds, your funds and shared it, instead of buying weapons. That was the kind of leadership I succeeded. That was the kind of economy I inherited.
“God knows I have done my best and I will continue to do my best,” President Buhari assured them.
In his remarks, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonishakin, told the meeting that in the last three months the military liberated more than 3,000 people kidnapped by Boko Haram in the northeastern part of the country.
He said the military has the ability to rescue the Chibok girls, but informed the group that “intelligence is delicate and we don’t want to do anything to jeopardise the lives of the girls”.
However, before he gave the order for another investigation into the abduction of the schoolgirls, Buhari chided the BBOG movement for not appreciating the efforts being made by his administration to fight the Boko Haram insurgents and rescue the girls.
The president, according to the BBOG leader and former Minister of Solid Minerals, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, who briefed newsmen after the closed-door meeting between the president and members of the group, also told her group that the insurgents had been weakened.
Ezekwesili said: “He stated that he would also have expected us to acknowledge the efforts that the government has made so far and that we failed to acknowledge the efforts the administration has made.
“He wised that we agreed that he is very committed to the matter of the Chibok girls. He used the specific phrase that he ‘sleeps and wakes up thinking about the rescue of our girls’.”
The group insisted on meeting with the president yesterday after a government delegation headed by the Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs. Aishat Jummai Al-Hassan, was mandated by the president to meet with them.
Buhari was said to have been hosting the President of Republic of Benin, Mr. Boni Yayi, in his office at the Presidential Villa at the time.
Ezekwesili also disclosed that the president was candid about the fact that his government was not in possession of any tangible intelligence report on the whereabouts of the abducted girls, but assured the group that the search was still ongoing.
“Mr. President subsequently came to join the meeting and what the president essentially said is that his statement during the media chat that the government does not have credible intelligence on the whereabouts of the girls had not changed.
“He said he was being truthful in the way that he knows how to be and that he was not prepared to tell any lies over the whereabouts of the girls.
“He added that the government does not have reliable intelligence that would enable it rescue the girls immediately and therefore we should continue to try to bear with him,” she said.
Asked about the group’s next line of action, Ezekwesili stated: “We will keep demanding as a movement for the action necessary to rescue our Chibok girls.
“The second thing is the feedback mechanism that we are demanding to enable the government interact frequently with the direct and primary owners of this tragedy – the parents of our Chibok girls and the community which has not been set up.
“We have now been told by the National Security Adviser and the Minister of Defence that the mechanism would be set up so that there would be closer interaction that would enable the parents at all times know the state and the progress that is being made.
“Number three is an investigation into what happened that led to the abduction of our Chibok girls is critical. A number of members of that community are insisting that the investigations were not concluded by the previous administration in order to unearth some of the things that happened before our Chibok girls were taken captive.
“It is consistent with our movement’s demand that the General Sabo report, that is the Presidential Fact Finding Committee report on our Chibok girls which was conducted and delivered to the previous administration, be made public.
“It needs to be disclosed, it needs to be transparently opened up, so that everyone would read what it was that the committee found during the course of its investigation.
“So we are demanding that this administration quickly accepts the demands of these parents that another investigation is undertaken, even as the General Sabo report is being disclosed,” she added.
Earlier, the Women Affairs Minister, Senator Aisha Alhassan Tukur, who led a team of government officials to meet with the group on behalf of the president, had assured it that the search for the girls remained the top priority of the Buhari administration.
She also appealed to the group to remain patient with the government.
Initially, however, there was a stand-off when members of the group insisted on seeing the president.
During the stand-off, Senator Alhassan Tukur, also known as Mama Taraba, impatiently told off the BBOG group for not giving the government prior notice of the meeting.
Alhassan Tukur, who was reported to have lacked empathy for the plight of the abducted girls' parents, was alleged to have informed the BBOG group that the girls were “not abducted by this administration”.
Other officials of government that met with the group included Monguno, Olonishakin and the Minister of Defence, Monsur Dan-Ali.
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