Almost three weeks after over 200
schoolgirls were abducted from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno
State, President Goodluck Jonathan has said the Federal Government does
not know their whereabouts.
Jonathan said this on Sunday during the Presidential Media Chat in Abuja.
He also spoke on the probe of the
Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison- Madueke, over the
N10bn she allegedly spent on a chartered jet, the security measures in
place for the World Economic Forum, the power sector reforms and the
2015 elections.
Asked if there was any confirmed
information about where the kidnapped schoolgirls are, Jonathan
replied, “None; there is none.”
The President, who said that security
operatives were currently engaged in a massive search for the girls,
explained that information so far provided to security operatives
yielded nothing.
He said, “All the information that have
been volunteered to us (about their location, we’ve used) and we have
searched the places. We are using aircraft – helicopters and planes –
that have the ability to scan and see what is on the surface. And we
have scanned, but we have nothing.”
Jonathan added that the government was not negotiating with Boko Haram or any group regarding the release of the girls.
He said, “You can’t negotiate with
somebody you don’t know; nobody has claimed knowledge of the abduction.
Even on the social media that the Boko Haram uses to show what they have
done…. As regards these girls, we have not seen such. Even the
spokesperson for Boko Haram has not come to tell Nigerians that they did
the kidnapping. So, the issue of negotiation has not come up.”
The President, however, assured Nigerians
that the government would get the girls back with the support of their
parents and guardians. This, he said, was because the Police did not
have records of the missing girls.
Jonathan said, “We actually request
maximum cooperation from the guardians and the parents of these girls
because up till this time, they have not been able to come and give the
Police clear identity of the girls that have yet to return.
“We are pleading that they should
cooperate with the government. We need the identity of these girls and
wherever they are, we are talking to all the neighbouring countries –
Cameroon, Chad and Benin Republic, as well as some countries in North
Africa – so that wherever they take these girls, we will get them back
if we get the maximum cooperation of the parents and guardians.”
Regardless of the challenges being faced
in a bid to rescue the girls, Jonathan said it would not end up being
another unsolved mystery.
He said the government was looking beyond
rumours, adding that since it appeared the girls had been taken out
of the country, a team was being sent to look closely at other
nations.
The President said while government was
exploring several options to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency, it would
not adopt the same approach used to resolve the Niger-Delta crisis.
This, he said, was because, unlike Boko Haram, the “Niger Delta militants were not terrorists.”
He said, “The Niger Delta militants
approach was quite different from that of the terrorists. The Niger
Delta militants were not terrorists. I am not trying to defend them
because I am from there.
“Even when I was a Deputy Governor and a
Governor, the then President (Olusegun) Obasanjo sometimes sent for us.
And some of the leaders of those boys (militants) used to come. You
were hearing that they were agitators in the Niger-Delta and somebody
like Asari (Dokubo) that is well known, I saw him for the first time in
the State House when I came for a meeting with Chief Obasanjo. So, they
had a reason for their agitation.”
Jonathan denied knowledge of the suit
filed by Alison-Madueke seeking to stop the House from probing her but
accused the members of playing politics.
He said, “I am not aware that the
Minister went to court to stop any investigation. And on the issue of
the House, there are a lot of issues that have been sorted out and there
are issues that are not clear. The minister has appeared before the
parliament more than 200 times.
“In fact, some of my ministers attended
25 per cent of the sittings in parliament. No country can progress when
a minister spends most of the time appearing before the parliament.
“The minister of petroleum has not gone to court to stop them.
“The information we have is that some
organisations have questioned the rationale for the probe . But what I
want you to know is that the parliament is made up of politicians. And
if you have been following the issue especially in the House, you will
know that there is more than politics than work.”
The President asked the House to rid itself of what he described as “parliamentary dictatorship”
“There is no human being on earth that
has not made mistakes. Presidents all over the world are being attacked
from the strongest country to the weakest country. But you cannot
satisfy everybody. People come after you from different angles. Some
people will just set up a magazine or newspaper because they want to
face one human being,” he claimed.
“I am not trying to protect anybody. Some
people talk about jet or no jet. The Ministry of Petroleum Resources is
one ministry that because of its activities people pay attention to it.
“The arrangement they have now whether it
is costlier than what they used to have, we will find out. We are
looking into it. But when somebody wakes up and says the ministry of
petroleum is making use of a jet, the ministry of petroleum has always
been using jets. Some government functionaries, you can go to the
parliament, they have their own. Whether they hire or not, I don’t know.
Only the judiciary is always mindful of what they do.”
He also spoke on emergency rule in Borno,
Yobe and Adamawa states, saying it had been effective in the war
against terrorists in the North-East.
Jonathan added, “The state of emergency
is effective. Some Nigerians think that when you declare a state of
emergency, the political institutions must collapse; the governor will
leave, the state assembly will be dissolved, local government chairmen
and councillors will leave. That is their own interpretation and as long
as those people are there, they feel that the state of emergency is not
complete and is ineffective.
“One of the key reasons why we declared
state of emergency was to ensure that security operatives had some
privileges and to avoid litigation.
“Terrorism is not a phenomenon that a
state of emergency of one month, six months and one year will solve;
except occasional terror.
“We are consulting the security and
relevant people and when we need to extend, we will extend it (state
of emergency) because I believe that we are succeeding.”
Meanwhile, the Principal of Government
Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, Hajiya Asabe Kwabura, was in the
early hours of Sunday arrested and quizzed at the Nigeria Police Force
Headquarters in Abuja in connection with the girls kidnapped in her
school on April 14.
Visit campusflava.com for more updated news
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