Chibok Girls are not Dead

President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed
confidence that the over 200 schoolgirls
abducted by Boko Haram in their hostel in
Chibok, Borno State last year are still alive.
Jonathan, who also said that his chance of
winning the March 28 presidential poll was
slimmer than in 2011, based his position on the
fact that terrorists would naturally display the
corpses of the girls if they had been killed.
He spoke while featuring on Kakaaki, a breakfast
programme on a private television station,
African Independent Television .
Reiterationg his promise that the girls would be
rescued alive, Jonathan said, “The good story is
that they ( insurgents) have not killed them
because when terrorists kill, they display the
corpses to intimidate the people.
“So, these girls are alive. And so, we will get the
girls. Luckily, we are narrowing down the areas
of their(insurgents) control. So we will get
them.”
The President stressed that security forces
were wary of storming the main stronghold of
Boko Haram because the insurgents might use
the girls as human shields.
“Because they may use them as shields so we
are working with the global best practices. We
can’t just move in with artillery and clear the
place,” he said.
The President however contradicted his earlier
assertion during his Monday interview with the
international television news channel, Al
Jazeera, that the Federal Government did not
mishandle the Boko Haram insurgency.
Jonathan said, “Yes, I agree that at the
beginning, probably we did not really estimate
the capacity of Boko Haram. Boko Haram started
as a non-violent group led by (Mohammed)
Yusuf and limited to around Maiduguri, of course,
from Yobe to Maiduguri. It did not even get up
to Adamawa, muchless of Yobe or Kano or
Bauchi.
“So, it started as a non-violent group. But just
like every group made up of youths or young
people taking to criminality, Boko Haram
expanded their network and linked up with other
terrorist organisations in North Africa. Of course
like al-Qaeda and others all over the world. So,
they continue to build their capacity.”
While admitting that the nation, at a time, had
issues procuring weapons to fight the insurgents,
the President said the challenge had been
overcome.
He disclosed that the country had been able to
procure between 60 and 65 per cent of the
weapons needed to prosecute the anti-terrorism
war.
Jonathan expressed confidence that he was
going to win the March 28 election under the
platform of the PDP, but admitted that his
chances were not as bright as they were in
2011.
He said, “Globally, a sitting president wins with
fewer votes than during his first attempt. The
PDP still has better chances of winning a
national election. The PDP is still the dominant
party; there’s no polling unit where you don’t
have PDP members.
“If you remove the PDP elements in the
opposition, it collapses like a pack of cards.
PDP still has an edge over every other party; I
am not worried about what the outcome of the
presidential election would be.”
He said he believed that Nigerians would vote for
him because his administration had done well.
Jonathan added that sometimes, his
administration was busy developing the country
that it forgot to advertise its achievements.
He said if Nigerians considered the present state
of the nation with its position some years back,
they would prefer that he continued in office for
the next four years.
He said the additional years would afford him the
opportunity to stabilise the country.
“If Nigerians really know what we were before
and what we did within these four years, then
they will encourage us to at least continue for
the next four years,” Jonathan added.
On the alleged plot by the Peoples Democratic
Party and his administration to foist an interim
government on the nation, Jonathan maintained
that there was no provision for such in the
country’s constitution.
“There’s no provision for interim government in
our constitution. The only interim government is
military government. Talking about interim
government to me is treasonable. There are
some Nigerians that are bent on creating crisis in
this country. There is no reason to doubt the
May 29 handover,” the President said.
Jonathan also spoke on the difficulties faced by
motorists at filling stations across the country,
saying that the pain was temporary.
He said with the issue of payment being
addressed by his government, fuel queues
would end in the next one or two days.
“For fuel scarcity, we are doing everything
humanly possible to ensure it is taken care of. It
is very temporary. Of course, there are issues of
payment being addressed and we believe that
within one or two days, this will completely go,”
the President said.
He however explained that Nigeria might not be
completely free from fuel scarcity until the
nation started refining crude oil.
The President faulted claims in some quarters
that the recent reduction in the pump price of
petrol was politically-motivated, saying the
decision was purely an economic one.
He said, “It (price reduction) is not politically-
motivated. The way people play politics with
everything in Nigeria is quite unfortunate. Pump
prices are not constant but are based on
changes in the international market.
“When I came on board as Vice-President in
2007, the price of crude oil at the international
market dropped to about $40, there was a day it
dropped to $38 per barrel and we dropped the
pump price to N65 per litre.
“We had to keep it up to N97 when the price
went up to about $111 per barrel at the
international market. The cushioning gap was
because the subsidy became unbearable to
government. So we had to push it up to N97 per
litre.
“Now that the international crude oil price has
dropped back to about $60 or so, it would not
be fair for you to still ask Nigerians to pay N97
except you want to deregulate completely.
“But if you are not deregulating completely then
the pump price will oscillate based on the
international price of crude oil. So it has nothing
to do with politics.”
When asked whether he would privatise the
nation’s refineries, Jonathan said the private
sector was better in terms of managing
enterprises.
He said globally, the best practice was for
government to create an enabling environment
for the private sector to drive the economy.
The president added, “If the refineries are
privatised and the private sector takes over, they
are not going to bring people from the moon to
work, they are still going to employ Nigerians but
there is the fear of the unknown which is normal
in human behaviour.
“That makes people to resist some changes. But
for the refineries, we will definitely do that. We
will privatise them completely in a way they
would have no effect on Nigerians.
“So, we cannot continue to have refineries that
would not work. It is not even helpful to them.
“But the most important thing is not just to
privatise the government-owned refineries but
allow the private sector to build their own
refineries and that is where we are going.”
But Jonathan’s assurance that the abducted
girls would be freed was doused by the Minister
of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, who said they might
not be found.
Chidoka, who featured on a programme – BBC
HARDTalk – monitored by one our
correspondents in Abuja on Thursday, however
expressed confidence that the military would
successfully dislodge Boko Haram.
He said, “ Boko Haram is a terror group. It has
decimated the girls across vast areas, 98,000
square kilometres of land area in Borno State,
which is even bigger than Scotland.
“The size of Borno State is bigger than Scotland
and we don’t have these girls packed in a room
and waiting for ransom. This is an evil terror
organisation.”
When probed further to state if the government
will rescue the girls, the minister replied, “Well,
as we dismantle them (Boko Haram) in their
areas, we are going to see what is behind those
lines; we are going to see what they are doing in
those forests and maybe we will find them
(Chobok girls), maybe not.
“But we are looking forward seriously to see
what is behind those lines.”
The minister refuted claims that the United
States experts gave intelligence obtained from
their drones to the Nigerian military and faulted
reports that the Nigerian forces failed to act on
the intelligence report from the US.
He said, “(That is) not correct, not correct,
because every time they talk about intelligence
they’ve given to Nigerians. We do know that at
some point when we were in the middle of the
major crisis, most of the intelligence we got from
them was in relation to the Chibok girls.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Government on
Wednesday night had a closed-door meeting
with parents and relatives of the abducted
Chibok schoolgirls.
Plans to get the girls released from Boko Haram
captivity was discussed at the meeting attended
by 30 parents of the kidnapped girls, five Chibok
elders and three youth leaders from the
community.
The Minister of State for Power, Mohammed
Wakil, represented Jonathan at the meeting
which took place in Maiduguri, Borno State.
Wakil, according a statement on Thursday by his
Special Adviser on Media, Olawale Rasheed,
assured the parents that the government
remained committed to the safe return of the
girls.
He told the parents that the government had
devised comprehensive counter- insurgency
strategies with four focal goals: reclaiming
occupied territories; rescuing abducted persons;
resettling internally displaced persons and
rehabilitating insurgency ravaged communities.
The statement quoted the minister as saying ,
“Mr President is pursuing multi- faceted
strategies which address the pains, anger and
frustrations of victims . Our President directed
me to tell you that his government is committed
to doing everything possible for the safe return
of your daughters.

Source : Punch