Showing posts with label Chibok Girls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chibok Girls. Show all posts
SECRET Document Reveals How Jonathan REJECTED UK, US, France Offer To RESCUE Chibok Girls
News Proof 5.3.17 No comments Edit Post
Reports coming out from the United Kingdom Saturday revealed that the government of former president Goodluck Jonathan rejected moves by the British armed forces to rescue the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls.
Notes from meetings between UK and Nigerian officials, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, also suggest that the administration shunned international offers to rescue the girls. While Nigeria welcomed an aid package and assistance from the US, the UK and France in looking for the girls, it viewed any action to be taken against kidnapping as a “national issue”.
“Nigeria’s intelligence and military services must solve the ultimate problem,” said Jonathan in a meeting with the UK’s then Africa minister, Mark Simmonds, on 15 May 2014.
A document summarising a meeting in Abuja in September 2014 between Nigeria’s national security adviser and James Duddridge MP, former under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office, shows Operation Turus had advanced to the point where rescue options were being discussed. Minutes from a meeting the following month between Major-General James Chiswell and Jonathan hinted at the frustration felt by those trying to prompt some action from Nigeria.
“[President] Jonathan was still focused on ‘platforms’. General Chiswell said again we could offer advice on what equipment might make sense and how weapon systems might be best deployed,” the October 2014 document stated.
According to the U.K Observer the Jonathan government rebuffed all offers to rescue the over 300 kidnapped schoolgirls.
In a mission named Operation Turus, the RAF conducted air reconnaissance over northern Nigeria for several months, following the kidnapping of the 276 girls from Chibok in April 2014.
“The girls were located in the first few weeks of the RAF mission,” a source involved in Operation Turus told the Observer. “We offered to rescue them, but the Nigerian government declined.”
The girls were then tracked by the aircraft as they were dispersed into progressively smaller groups over the following months, the source added.
The Federal Government, through the Ministry of Information, finally did what it should have done a long time ago. It this week took the convener of Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group and former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, co-Convener Aisha Yesufu, spokesman for the Chibok community, Manasseh Allen and Ibrahim Usman on an Air Force mission in search of the Chibok girls.
Taking a delegation on a trip to see things for themselves is a masterstroke that clarified many things but only that in this instance the ministry transacted with the wrong group. One can forgive the offer to BBOG after its serial harassment and blackmail of government officials. It is however self-serving on the part of the group to accept the offer since its presence on that tour was uncalled for and unnecessary because BBOG is not representing anybody's interest other than its members.
The visit should have been for key stakeholders particularly the parents of the girls and other elder statesmen and women not a group of career activists on joyride. That people who took it upon themselves to constitute nuisance had the right of first refusal for the tour has set a very dangerous precedent as blackmail and harassment of government would henceforth be considered as the new normal.
The aftermath of the exercise has shown that it was a wasted venture where BBOG racketeers are concerned. Similar to excursions, the tour should have by now helped the group's members transit from theoretical perception of things to fully appreciate that the real deal is not what it is depicted as in Hollywood blockbusters where the protagonists kill off the antagonists in the last ten minutes of the flick and set hostages free. On the contrary, searching for the missing girls is a tedious exercise considering technological and human limitations that are amplified by other realities in the theatre of war.
Ezekwesili, who is BBOG, would however not have anyone or anything obstruct her attention craving lifestyle. Accepting the invitation to that tour was not without drama, she first set conditions and got her fifteen hours in the media limelight. By the time the guided tour was over, like someone requiring a fix every other time, she craved even more media attention and rushed to grab it before Nigerians lose interest in her and discuss the reality of the scale of logistics needed to search for the girls.
As if for us to finally comprehend the quality of reasoning that powered the government she served in the past, Ezekwesili reduced the efforts to find the stolen girls to trivia of geography. “Dreaded Sambisa is massive. Sixty thousand square kilometers. Eighteen times the size of Lagos State! All of Lagos is 3,345 square km,” she tweeted from her verified account on Twitter.
The BBOG Convener further wrote, "“The famous Camp Zero in Sambisa? Well, it turns out that capturing Camp Zero is NOT equal to capturing Sambisa. It is just a spot in there." Series of other tweets later, she indicated she and her group would be back to the trenches. “We came. We learned. Now we return. To stand! To demand!! #BringBackOurGirlsNowAndAlive!" She declared.
Apparently, if the tour was meant to make members of BBOG see reason and allow the military do their work it did not achieve that. Thankfully that was never announced as the intention since the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed clearly stated that the trip was to give first hand information that will allow for better understanding of efforts being made to find the remaining Chibok Girls.
Before either sides, government and BBOG, formally make their assessment of the trip some lessons are already apparent. First, is that Ezekwesili as the convener of BBOG has proven beyond measure through her comments on Twitter that there is a strong element of malice in the way she and some members of the group are carrying out their campaign. Whether this malice is purposeful or accidental is left to be seen but one now has an impression of a group that is hellbent on harassing government.
Secondly, even as confirmed by the former minister, a lot of the assertions earlier made by the campaigners was driven by ignorance. Placard carrying members of BBOG had been misinformed by their leaders and handlers to think that the entire northeast was the size of 100 football field and Sambisa Forest was the size of a housing estate.
Now that they have realized the enormity of the landmass involved one would expect they will quietly ruminate over what needed to be done but Ezekwesili, not wanting to lose her moment in the spotlight has turned around to say capturing Camp Zero is not the same as capturing Sambisa Forest. Had the Boko Haram terrorists been allowed to continue at the pace they were going before the inception of this administration would their capture of Abuja, the nation's capital, not be as good as capturing the entire country?
The trip has shown Ezekwesili that military operations, even from the relative safety of being airborne is not the same as attending World Bank sponsored business dinners. She cannot use her large following to perpetuate the lie that she is now an expert in military tactics and operations. She must be humble enough to admit that a one day emotional sortie flight is not enough to confirm anyone a pilot or military strategists and such should not come up with inciting or inflammatory comments in the aftermath of this mission.
Even where she does decides to throw decorum to the wind the average person on her group should have by now seen that this woman is overrated. She possibly thought the trip comes with estacode and travel allowance and that she is disappointed is glaring to see. It is natural for her to totally lose it when she discovered governance has changed and there is no more frittering money away as was the case in the past, including under her watch.
If she cannot stomach the reality that much is being done to rescue these girls she can go start another support group, create a bucket list or spend more time at the salon to chat with other women or simply find other avenues to feed her idleness without whipping up negative sentiments at a time the nation is in need of healing.
The same way the Air Force sortie allowed a better view of Sambisa Forest from the skies it has allowed one to have a better view of the convener and the group formed. It is about something else, not the abducted girls.
Agbese is worldwide President of Stand Up 4 Nigeria{SUN} and contributed this piece from Abuja.
BREAKING: BBOG Bows, Agrees To Join Military, FG On Journey To Sambisa Forest Today In Search For Chibok Girls
News Proof 16.1.17 No comments Edit Post
Fooling the Federal Government rejection of condition stipulated by the #BringBackOurGirls group, the co-convener of the group, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, has finally agreed to join Nigerian troops and a team led by the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed to Sambisa Forest today.
The trip is meant to search for the abducted Chibok schoolgirls in the once dreaded forest, then occupied by Boko Haram insurgents.
Ezekwesili, in an e-mail to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed at 8.20pm on Sunday indicated the interest of her group to join the search for the missing girls in Sambisa forest by giving another conditional acceptance which the government met.
Here is the correspondence between Ezekwesili and Alhaji Mohammed on the planned guided tour of Sambisa forest tomorrow, sent by Segun Adeyemi, an aide of the minister.
”At 8.20 PM on Sunday Evening, #BBOG contacted the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, to indicate its conditional acceptance of the offer to travel with the team heading for the NE to witness first-hand the military’s ongoing search for the
Chibok Girls.
This came as a surprise, considering that the #BBOG had earlier given impractical conditions for joining the trip, and the FG had rejected those conditions.
But the FG still responded, meeting all the fresh conditions stipulated by the #BBOG in the conditional acceptance letter
Please find below the details of the latest communication between the FG and the #BBOG
1. LETTER FROM #BBOG Co-Convener Oby Ezekwesili to the FG at 8.20 P.M.
From: Oby Ezekwesili
Date: 15 January 2017 at 8:20:43 PM WAT
To: HonMinister InfoCul
Subject: Re: #BBOG LETTER
Thanks Minister Mohammed for your letter of the 14th January in response to ours.
Can you please quickly provide us more details of the tour duration and detailed logistics including the names of the local and international media on the delegation.
We need those information to enable us send you a more substantial letter conveying our acceptance to join the “Guided Tour”.
Many thanks for your invitation.
Blessings,
Oby
NAN
We Were Kept At A Top Anti-Jonathan Politician's House In Gwoza For 8mnths - Rescued Chibok Girls Narrate Ordeal
News Proof 11.1.17 No comments Edit Post
Narrating their abduction story, the rescued Chibok girls have revealed that they were actually kept in a Borno top politician house in Gwoza Local Government, debunking earlier media reports that they were taken direct to sambisa forest after their abduction, report by Daily Post suggest.
It was gathered from a Clergyman, Pastor Bulus Baba of Kaya community in Chibok local Government Area of Borno state, according to Daily Post that some top politicians who are sponsors of the Boko Haram insurgents were allegedly involved in their abduction, probably to frustrate the past administration under President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Gils made the revelation during their visit to celebrate Christmas with their parents and relations in Chibok revealed
Pastor Bulus Baba, according to our source said, his discussion with some of the released Chibok girls shows that, they were not taken immediately to Sambisa Forest as we were made to believe in many reports, rather, they were taken to Maiduguri, the state capital and kept at a location in GRA, where they spent about two months before they were relocated to Gwoza local government, which later became Boko Haram Caliphate.
According to him, ” The girls said, they spent over 8 months in Gwoza local government area along with other abducted women. They said they were kept at a resident of one of the top politicians in that local government area until at a point when a fighter jet dropped bomb that touch part of the house killing some of the girls.”
He said, after that incident, the girls said they were then moved to the Sambisa Forest where they were divided into groups with some of them forced to marry the militants, while some of them were sexually abused by the militants.
“It was a sad story, we believe that those behind this evil will never go unpunished. For us in Chibok, we will keep praying that, those of them who are still being held by their captors shall gain freedom and be reunited with their families like these ones that came home.” He added.
According to him, before the Christmas arrangement that brought the released girls, many parents and relatives did not believe that some of the girls have been released. He said, some of the parent died within the period due to blood pressure and other related ailments
Troops of the 27 Brigade, on Thursday rescued another abducted Chibok schoolgirl and her baby.
The girl identified as Rakiya Abubakar was rescued by the troops around Algarno area near Ajigin, Damboa local government area.
The Army Spokesperson, Brig General Sani Usman while confirming the report, said troops has found another Chibok girl.
Recall that over 200 girls were abducted by Boko Haram insurgents over two years ago in Chibok in Borno State.
This development is coming at a time President Muhammadu Buhari has claimed the war on insurgency in the North East has been won, following the capture of Sambisa Forest.
The Nigerian Army says rescued Chibok schoolgirl, Rakiya Abubakar, has a six-months-old baby.
The acting Director, Army Public Relations, Brig. Gen. Sani Usman, disclosed this in a statement confirming her rescue and providing details.
Another Chibok schoolgirl rescued by troops
He said she was rescued by troops of Operation Lafiya Dole who were investigating suspected Boko Haram terrorists.
He said, “According to preliminary investigation, it was discovered she is the daughter of Abubakar Gali Mulima and Habiba Abubakar of Chibok.
“She further stated that she was a student of Senior Secondary School Class 3B (SS 3B), before her abduction along with her colleagues on 14th April 2014 by the Boko Haram terrorists.
“Rakiya Abubakar is presently undergoing further medical investigation and would soon be released to the Borno State Government.”
37 Boko Haram Notorious Killer Sect Members Arrested In Lagos
News Proof 18.11.16 No comments Edit Post
The Nigerian Army said it has arrested 37 Boko Haram members in Lagos and Ogun states, in the last one year.
General Officer Commanding (GOC) of 81 Division, Major General Henry Edet said this at an handing over ceremony, yesterday.
He said the insurgents were arrested between August 2015 and October 2016 and added that they have been handed over to higher authorities for prosecution.
General Edet, who spoke shortly after handing over the reign of command to Major General Ebenezar Oyefolu, said “Lagos is not an exception in the arrest of Boko Haram fighters. As the war in the North East becomes intense, insurgents run to different parts of the country to hide.”
He added that the interaction which he had had with other commanders indicated that “insurgents are also being arrested in other part of the country where they seek refuge.
“As Boko Haram is being defeated in the North East, they run to so many parts of the country; we interact the other division commanders and they are arrested everywhere around the country, so, Lagos is no exception. We will continue to arrest and hand them over to higher authorities.
“In Lagos and Ogun states, we arrested about 37 of them from the period I took over in August 2015 till date.”
Meanwhile, at least 22 persons were reportedly killed in separate attacks, this week, by suspected Boko Haram gunmen in Monguno Local Government Area of Borno State, security sources said.
Insurgents carried out the attacks between Monday and Tuesday, according to a top official of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria, Abbas Gava in Borno State.
The vigilante usually work with soldiers to secure Borno and the state government has said many of them will be recruited into the army after Boko Haram is defeated.
The source informed PREMIUM TIMES that the villages of Dasa and Duwabayi, both in Monguno Local Government Area, were attacked by the Boko Haram insurgents.
“We received the sad information from our colleagues operating in Monguno who said on Monday that gunmen attacked Dasa, a village about 3km away from Monguno during which they killed nine persons”, said Mr. Gava who also functions as the spokesman of the local vigilante group in the state.
“On Tuesday night, again, the gunmen went to attack Duwabayi, another village not far away from Dasa, where they killed 13 persons – making it a total of 22 dead casualties. The gunmen who stormed the villages in large numbers ensured that they burnt down every building in the two villages”.
Mr. Gava added that members of his vigilante group on Wednesday in Monguno arrested one of the notorious amirs (commander) of Boko Haram whom they reportedly handed over to the soldiers in Monguno.
He said residents of the two villages fled their homes in the wake of the attacks.
Monguno is one of the most attacked local government areas located within the northern axis of Borno state.
The local government headquarters, also called Monguno, fell under the control of Boko Haram on January 25, 2015 when the insurgents overran the town and the 243 Battalion barracks there.
After Nigerian soldiers retook the barracks, it was upgraded to its present 8th Task Force Division, Nigeria Army.
The spokesman of the 8th Task Force Division, Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu, who usually communicates through WhatsApp, was not available to speak on the attacks.
The Boko Haram attacks have continued despite continued negotiations with the federal government for the release of the kidnapped Chibok girls.
Twenty one of the over 200 girls kidnapped from Chibok in Borno State in 2014 have already been released by the insurgents.
The federal government recently denied it paid ransom to free the girls.
No Rape, No Force Marriage, B'Haram Treated Us Well - Chibok 21 Shock Buhari In Secret Memoir, Narrates Ordeals At Sambisa
News Proof 10.11.16 No comments Edit Post
New Telegraph - No fewer than 61 Chibok girls abducted in April 2014 had been married to Boko Haram militants while three others died during childbirth. Eight of the over 200 abducted Chibok schoolgirls also died during Nigerian air force strikes while one other died due to an unknown cause.
This is as the 21 Chibok schoolgirls who recently regained their freedom after more than two years of captivity in the hands of Boko Haram terrorists have disclosed that they were not abused or raped during the period of their captivity in Sambisa forest in Borno State.
This is contrary to the general perception by human rights groups that most of the girls kidnapped by the Islamist militant group have been used as sex slaves.
A confidential report purportedly prepared for President Muhammadu Buhari after two weeks of profiling and debriefing of the freed girls by security operatives indicated that the militants treated them well while they were held captive.
The girls, who were released last month after Nigeria, supported by Switzerland and the International Committee of the Red Cross brokered a deal, are now being held in a secret location in Abuja where they have been undergoing psychological assessment and rehabilitation.
According to the secret report, heath workers involved in the screening have confirmed that the girls were not sexually abused while in captivity and that they all tested negative for sexually transmitted diseases.
“The girls said the Boko Haram men always assured them that they would eventually go back home to their families, and were careful about what they said around the girls and how they treated them,” said the source, who declined to be named.
“They had been fed well and regularly, until the military cut off Boko Haram supplies,” a source told Thomas Reuters Foundation. The daily routine for the girls, who were moved in captivity between Gwoza and the Sambisa forest, a Boko Haram stronghold, involved personal time in the morning followed by Koranic teaching and cooking meals, the report said.
Most of the girls said they were held in makeshift dwellings made of zinc sheets in Sambisa, while those who were married lived with their militant husbands in camps across the forest.
The girls said that while the Boko Haram militants advised them to marry and convert to Islam, they were not forced into doing so, according to the report.
“The girls said that those of them who did not agree to marry were used as house girls (servants),” the source said. According to the source, the girls recognised almost all the faces of Boko Haram members on a government most-wanted list, but did not know the militants’ names and never saw the Islamist group’s established figurehead, Abubakar Shekau.
The first of the Chibok girls to be released by Boko Haram, Amina Ali, was freed in May. Ali has since been held in a house in Abuja for what the state has called a “restoration process”.
She said in August that she “just wanted to go home”. Another Chibok girl and her 10-month-old son were discovered by troops days ago while they were screening escapees from Boko Haram’s base in the Sambisa forest.
Updates On Another Rescued Chibok Girl, Her Full Name, Photo And Others Facts
News Proof 5.11.16 No comments Edit Post![]() |
Maryam Ali Maiyanga, A rescued chibok Girl |
A statement issued by the army Spokesman, Col. Sani Usman, in Abuja, said the girl was discovered while the troops were screening some escapees from Boko Haram terrorists’ hideout in Sambisa forest at about 6 a.m.
Usman gave the name of the rescued girl as Maryam Ali Maiyanga.
“She was discovered to be carrying a 10-month-old son, named Ali. She has been taken to the unit’s medical facility for proper medical check up.
“It is imperative to state that troops have been working round the clock to clear remnants of Boko Haram terrorists wherever they might be hibernating and also rescue all persons held hostages by terrorists,” he said.
The Boko Haram terrorists had released 21 of the 219 kidnapped girls on Nov. 13 after negotiations between them and the Federal Government which was facilitated by the Swiss Government and the Red Cross.
The girls were abducted in April 2014 by the insurgents.
NAN
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