- Found with child and husband, says others alive
- Buhari: Corruption, injustice rendered military incapable of defeating Boko Haram
Bolaji Adebiyi, Senator Iroegbu, Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja, Micheal Olugbode in Maiduguri
For Amina Ali, one of the 276 school
girls abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State
in April 2014 by the terrorist Boko Haram sect, it was sweet freedom on
Tuesday as she was rescued from the fringes of the terrorists’ den in
the Sambisa Forest.
And thursday, she will have the rare
privilege of meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari who has been
scheduled to receive her at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
“President Muhammadu Buhari is set to
receive her thursday. She will be brought by the Governor of Borno
State, Alhaji Kashim Shettima,” the Senior Special Assistant to the
President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Shehu Garba, told Thisday last
night.
Although a web of controversy surrounded
the circumstances of her rescue yesterday, the school girl, who was
rescued along with her four-month old child and her husband, was briefly
reunited with her parents before being handed over to the military who
after debriefing her presented her to Governor Shettima.
The General Officer Commanding (GOC), 7
Division Nigerian Army, Brigadier General Victor Ezugwu, who took the
girl to the governor, said the governor had promised to present her to
President Muhammadu Buhari today.
”I want to further confirm to you
that, we have found one of the Chibok girls but plead for your
understanding on this issue, we need to give her time to rest as you can
see she is traumatized and nursing a baby.
”The governor has told us
that he does not want to take credit for this and will hand over the
girl to Mr. President who will in turn unveil her to the nation,” Ezugwu
said.
Amina is the first and only girl to be
rescued out of the missing 219 abducted school girls, 57 of them having
escaped at various times in 2014. However, the military, which entered a
credit duel over Amina’s rescue yesterday now has 210 more girls to
bring back from the terrorists’ gulag.
After the Cable Network News, CNN
International, broke news of the Chibok girl’s rescue broke yesterday,
attributing the rescue to the Civilian Joint Task Force, a vigilante
group assisting the military to fight the Boko Haram, the military
confirmed the story, saying its troops performed the fit.
“This is to confirm that one of the
abducted Chibok school girls, Falmata Mbalala, was among the rescued
persons by our troops at Baale, near Damboa, Borno State,” Col. Sani
Usman, the Director of Army Public Relations (DAPR), stated in a terse
statement.
Usman in another statement, however,
clarified that the girls name was Amina Ali, adding that she was found
with a four-month old baby, named Safiyat, as well as a man, said to be
her husband.
He explained how the girl was rescued,
“In continuation of Operation Crackdown, troops of 25 Brigade, Damboa in
conjunction with Civilian JTF deployed in one of the blocking positions
at Baale, near Damboa rescued one Miss Amina Ali and a suspected Boko
Haram terrorist, Mohammed Hayatu, who claimed to be her husband.”
He
said that both were brought to Headquarters 25 Task Force Brigade,
Damboa about 2.30pm yesterday.
Shortly after the confirmation by the
military, the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group also issued a statement
in which it identified the rescued girl as Amina Darsha Nkeki, and
confirmed that she was one of the missing 219 Chibok girls.
According to a statement signed by one
of the leaders of the group, Jeff Okoroafor, Amina’s name is the 127th
on its list of the missing 219 girls.
He said, “One of our abducted Chibok
girls, Amina Ali Darsha Nkeki, from Mbalala has been found in Kulakaisa
area at the fringes of Sambisa Forest by vigilantes from Chibok on
patrol yesterday (Tuesday) night. Her name is #127 on our list of 219
missing Chibok girls attached.”
He quoted the Chairman of the Chibok
Girls’ Parents Association, Mr. Yakubu Nkeki, to have said that Amina
was found alongside her child of about a year old, adding that she
identified the Vice Principal of her school, Government Secondary
School, Chibok, and also spoke with her mother.
Okoroafor added, “She provided useful
information that her other classmates are still held under heavy
terrorist captivity in the Sambisa forest area.”
He said the rescued girl had been handed
over by the vigilantes to Nigerian troops at Damboa who help with
facilitating the verification of her identity, stating, however, that
the group would await official confirmations from the military and the
Nigerian government.
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari
has attributed the success recorded in the fight against Boko Haram to
elimination of corruption in the armed forces.
A statement issued in Abuja yesterday
by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and
Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, said Buhari made the declaration while
speaking with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. Ahmed El-Tayeb,
Buhari said corruption was largely responsible for the inability of the Nigerian military to quickly defeat Boko Haram.
The president said the loss of 14 local
government areas to Boko Haram had greatly tarnished the reputation of
the Nigerian Armed Forces.
Buhari noted, however, that with
measures taken by his administration to curb corruption and provide
better weaponry, logistics, training and welfare for soldiers on the
frontlines, the Nigerian military had almost totally incapacitated Boko
Haram as a fighting force and recovered all territories that were lost
to the terrorist sect.
“When we curbed corruption and removed the injustice in the military, we began to make progress,” Buhari said.
Welcoming the support of Muslims across
the world for Nigeria’s war against Boko Haram, the president said that
the war against terrorism was also a war against injustice, which was
not condoned by Islam and all the major religions.
“You can’t kill the innocent in churches
or in mosques and shout Allahu Akbar,” Buhari said, adding that the
visit of El-Tayeb and his expression of solidarity with Nigeria in the
war against terrorism was a clear indication of global Muslim support
for Nigeria against the unjust killing of the innocent by terrorists.
The president, who reaffirmed his
administration’s determination to resettle all persons who were
displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency, thanked the Grand Imam for the
donation of scholarships, educational and medical supplies to Nigeria’s
Internally Displaced Persons.
El-Tayeb told Buhari that Muslims all
over the world shared Nigeria’s pains from terrorism and would continue
to support efforts to ensure the return of peace and unity amongst all
faiths in the country.
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