President
Goodluck Jonathan has said on Thursday that the more than 200 female
pupils kidnapped by Boko Haram from their hostel at the Government Girls
Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State, are still alive.
Jonathan revealed this in an interview with the African Independent Television during a current affairs programme, Kaakaki.
The schoolgirls have spent more than 300 days in captivity since they
were abducted in April 14 last year during their West African
Examination Council final papers.
The President’s claim that the girls were still being kept by Boko Haram
contradicted Abubakar Shekau’s statement in a video released in October
2014 to the media that he had married off the pupils. In a previous
statement, the group’s leader had threatened to sell the girls as slave
brides.
Jonathan argued that if the schoolgirls had been killed, the Boko Haram
insurgents’ commander, Shekau, would have released a video showing how
they the girls were murdered.
According to the President, the Nigerian security forces are also wary
of storming the main stronghold of the terrorists because they fear the
insurgents may use the girls as shields.
He said, “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. The good story is that they’ve not been killed. They
are still alive because when terrorists kill they display.”
The President however contradicted his assertion, during his Monday
interview with the cable TV news channel, Al Jazeera that the Federal
Government did not mishandle the Boko Haram insurgency, claiming that
the insecurity problem did not start during his tenure.
Jonathan said, “At the beginning, we did not really estimate the
capacity of Boko Haram. But over the years they continued to build their
capacity with links with other terrorist groups. I believe we’ve got up
to 65 per cent of what is needed to prosecute this war.”
He added that the military force was winning the war against the
insurgents, noting that only Madagali still remains under the control of
the terrorist group in Adamawa State.
“People will want to go back when they no longer hear stories of Boko
Haram invasion. We launched the Victims’ Support Fund to aid in
rehabilitating them. The Victims’ Support Fund is not managed directly
by government but by the private sector,” the President stated.
Speaking on the alleged plot by the Peoples Democratic Party and his
administration to foist an interim government on the nation, Jonathan
pointed out that there was no provision for interim government 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 was no reason to doubt the May
29 handover,” the PDP presidential candidate said.
Although Jonathan expressed confidence that he was going to win the
March 28 election under the platform of the PDP, he admitted that his
chances were slimmer than they were in 2011.
“Globally, a sitting president wins with fewer votes than during his
first attempt. PDP still has better chances of winning a national
election. 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 would just
collapse like a pack of cards. PDP still has an edge over every other
party; I am not worried about the outcome of the presidential election,”
the President said.
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