Abducted Chibok girls FG ‘reviews’ swap offer by B/Haram

The Federal Government yesterday said it was reviewing an offer by the Boko Haram sect to swap the abducted Chibok schoolgirls for sect members being held by security agencies.Leader of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lid Da’awati Wal Jihad, Abubakar Shekau, in a video released yesterday, offered to free the more than 200 schoolgirls seized by […]

The Federal Government yesterday said it was reviewing an offer by the Boko Haram sect to swap the abducted Chibok schoolgirls for sect members being held by security agencies.
Leader of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lid Da’awati Wal Jihad, Abubakar Shekau, in a video released yesterday, offered to free the more than 200 schoolgirls seized by his fighters last month in exchange for detainees.
The 27-minute video reviewed by Daily Trust showed about 130 girls wearing hijab and reciting the opening chapter of the Qur’an in an undisclosed location.
It is believed that up to 270 female students were abducted by Boko Haram fighters from the Government Secondary School Chibok on April 14. Fifty-three of them escaped in the days after the kidnapping.
“All I am saying is if you want us to release your girls that we kidnapped, you must release our brethren that are held in Borno, in Yobe, in Kano, in Kaduna, in Abuja, in Lagos, up to Enugu. We know that you have incarcerated our brethren all over this country,” Shekau said in Hausa.
“There are some of my brethren who have spent five complete years without seeing their wives, without seeing their children. There is even a woman that you released but refused to let her go with her baby. For God’s sake, even for ensuring their release, will I not kidnap? After all Allah says I should kidnap.
“You that seized and detained my brethren for five years, you arrested and kept a woman without getting married for four, five years, you seized and hold our children.”
Shekau, who appeared wearing military fatigue, did not give the actual number of girls in his custody but claimed that many of them have converted to Islam while few have been reluctant to do that.
“I will sell them. I repeat again. And by Allah you will never get them (back) until the day you release our brethren you arrested and detained,” he said.
It is not clear where the girls are located, but the appearance of more than 100 of them in the same place indicates that most of the abducted girls are together, despite reports that suggested majority of them had been ferried to neighbouring countries.
It is difficult to say if Shekau is in the same place as the girls, as he is shown in the video with a super-imposed backdrop, while the girls are in an open field, surrounded by partially defoliated trees and shrubs.
FG: All options open
In a statement in Abuja last night, the National Information Centre on the abducted schoolgirls said the Federal Government was reviewing the video and would continue to explore all options to get back the missing students.
The statement, issued by Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr. Mike Omeri, said: “Government is reviewing the content of the video and the accompanying statement issued by the sect.
“Government will continue to explore all options for the release and safe return of our girls back to their homes.
“An earlier report by a section of the media purported to have been issued by Government is totally false.”
Earlier in the day, in a swift reaction to the Boko Haram offer, Interior Minister Abba Moro said the Federal Government was closing in on the abductors and that it would not bow to their demands.
“Boko Haram has been designated a terrorist organisation, hence it is unthinkable if this group gave out condition for anything to the government,” he said in an interview aired on BBC Hausa radio.
“As you know, Nigeria has invited international countries and we are closing in on them. There is no doubt that everybody has been eager to see these girls are rescued, but in everything, there is supposed to be the rules of the game.
“Hence, no amount of pressure on Nigeria as an independent nation, to bow out. We know that this (exchange) way is part of the rules of the engagement, but as government, it needs to exert its power towards adherence to the rules.”
The Chibok abduction triggered global outrage, with condemnations including from widely-respected Islamic scholars and global bodies.
Shekau said yesterday all the prominent Muslim clerics from around the world who denounced the abduction are politicians and not real Muslims.
There have been offers of support to Nigeria from the United States, Britain, France, China, Israel and other countries.
Apparently referring to the international support, Shekau said no forces would be able to trace his whereabouts and rescue the girls.
He said he was “really shocked by the outrage around the world” over the abduction.
Shettima: I have info on girls’ location
Meanwhile, Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima yesterday ordered mass production of the Boko Haram video so that parents of the abducted girls would try to identify their daughters, according to a statement by the governor’s spokesman Isa Umar Gusau.
“Governor Shettima views the development as encouraging especially given the fact that some of the girls said they were not harmed. The governor hopes that the girls did not speak under duress,” the statement said.
Speaking in an interview with the BBC television, Shettima also said he has information on the whereabouts of the abducted schoolgirls and had passed reports of the sightings of the girls to the military for verification.
He added that he did not think the girls had been taken across the border to Chad or Cameroon.