Jonathan visits Chibok today

President Goodluck Jonathan is scheduled this morning to visit Chibok, where more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted 32 days ago, Presidency officials said yesterday.It will be Jonathan’s first visit since the girls were taken by suspected Boko Haram gunmen at the Government Secondary School Chibok, Borno State.The president has come under criticism for the government’s […]

President Goodluck Jonathan is scheduled this morning to visit Chibok, where more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted 32 days ago, Presidency officials said yesterday.
It will be Jonathan’s first visit since the girls were taken by suspected Boko Haram gunmen at the Government Secondary School Chibok, Borno State.
The president has come under criticism for the government’s slow response to the kidnappings. It took nearly three weeks since the abduction before Jonathan publicly spoke out and pledged to get the girls back.
A presidency official told Daily Trust yesterday that the president will leave Abuja early this morning for Chibok, from where he will proceed to France for a security summit convened by French President Francois Hollande.
President Jonathan will be joined at the Paris summit by leaders of Benin Republic, Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
The summit is to discuss fresh strategies for dealing with the security threat posed by Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in West and Central Africa, a statement from the Presidency said yesterday.
“It is also expected that Britain, the United States of America and the European Union will be represented at the talks which will give special attention to the coordination and intensification of efforts to curtail the destabilising activities of Boko Haram in Nigeria and neighbouring countries in the wake of the recent abduction of college girls,” said Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati.
Jonathan will be accompanied by Defence Minister retired Lt-Gen. Aliyu Gusau, National Security Adviser retired Col. Sambo Dasuki and other principal aides and advisers. They will return to Abuja tomorrow.
‘Sad ending likely’
The abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls provoked international outrage.
The United States and Britain are helping Nigerian forces in the effort to liberate the girls.
But a report by Reuters news agency yesterday quoted officials and security experts as saying it is unlikely for the hunt of the girls to deliver the success that global opinion demands.
“We commend the effort by the #BringBackOurGirls protesters but it doesn’t fit with the reality of the security situation we are facing,” said a senior Nigerian military source who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Foreign experts are also pessimistic that the girls can be extricated from the rebels’ clutches and returned to their homes.
“I think a rescue is currently unlikely and unfeasible,” said Jacob Zenn, a Boko Haram expert at U.S. counter-terrorism institution CTC Sentinel.
Until Monday, nothing had been seen of the girls since they were snatched from the village of Chibok near Nigeria’s borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Then Boko Haram released a video showing about 130 girls together in a rural location. Sect leader Abubakar Shekau offered to exchange them for captured militants.
The video raised hopes that their location could be found using ground forces, state-of-the-art intelligence and surveillance planes.
Then an operation could be staged, perhaps with forces swooping from the sky like a British raid in Sierra Leone in 2000 to free soldiers held by militiamen, or Israeli commandoes’ rescue of passengers from a jet hijacked to Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976.
However, such a scenario is unlikely this time. One source with knowledge of the search said the footage was probably taken at least 10 days ago, if Boko Haram’s past videos are any guide. By now, the girls could be somewhere else as a group, or dispersed to many places.
The Sambisa forest, Boko Haram’s stronghold, is a first target but it is not conducive to aerial search because it covers 60,000 square km (23,000 square miles), more than twice the size of Rwanda. The rebels know this area intimately and could spread the girls among local families, making them virtually undetectable by conventional security forces.
Two U.S. national security sources said initially the girls were separated into around three large groups but were subsequently scattered in smaller groups. Other experts said they could be in mountains near Gwoza on the Cameroon border.
If this is the case, some girls might be found before others, posing a dilemma for would-be rescuers.
“In the past, Boko have threatened, and maybe actually gone ahead with, killing hostages upon sensing the merest hint of possible rescue operations,” said a security source. Rescuing some girls could add to danger faced by others still captive.
Ultimately, the girls’ best hope may lie in dialogue but the road to talks remains uncertain as President Jonathan on Wednesday told a British minister that there would be no prisoner swap as demanded by Boko Haram.
One security source in Abuja cautioned against raising false hopes. “It is time we removed the thought of a very happy ending to this situation,” the source said.