The immediate past President of Nigeria, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who expressed sadness over distorted reports alleging that he refused British Govt’s offer to rescue Chibok Girls, have given a detailed account of the Chibok girls saga.
Response to The Guardian of U.K.
My attention has been drawn to a report in the Guardian of the U.K. alleging that the former Nigerian President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan rebuffed efforts by the British military to rescue the kidnapped Chibok Girls sometime in 2014.
Nothing could be further from the truth and to prove that this story from the Guardian is untrue, the international community will recall that when a Boko Haram affiliate kidnapped a Briton and an Italian, Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara, from Birnin Kebbi in Kebbi state of Nigeria, then President Jonathan personally authorized British Special Forces from the British Military Special Boat Service, to attempt a rescue mission in Sokoto state on the 8th of March, 2012 a full two years before the Chibok Girls Saga.
The British Military sent boots to the ground and these troops were given full and unhindered cooperation by both the then Nigerian government and the Nigerian military.
This already shows that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had set a precedence of allowing British Military Forces operate in Nigeria to rescue hostages. This proves that not only is The Guardian story untrue, but it was not well researched. Why would then President Jonathan approve that operation and rebuff the other? The story from The Guardian is built on a foundation of lies.
This is however not surprising since The Guardian stated that it was relying not on its own investigation but on second hand hearsay reportage from The Observer.
The international community is reminded that it is public knowledge that then President Goodluck Jonathan wrote letters to the trio of then US President, Barack Obama, then British Prime Minister, David Cameron and French President, François Hollande, asking them for precisely what The Guardian says he refused, help in rescuing the Chibok Girls.
The international community is reminded that so eager was the then Nigerian President to rescue the girls that he personally approved for these foreign governments to fly over Nigerian airspace in order to identify the location of the Chibok Girls.
Not only did Dr. Goodluck Jonathan welcome foreign intervention, he was also the prime mover in the Multi National Joint Task Force involving Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria and authorized the military forces of those nations to fight Boko Haram on Nigeria soil. If President authorized the military forces of these nations to operate against terrorists in Nigeria, why would he refuse similar assistance from Nigeria’s international partners?
And to Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s current minister of information (if he can be so called) who said:
“After the girls were kidnapped and the Jonathan Administration did nothing for all of 15 days or make any determined efforts to rescue them thereafter, our party, the then opposition APC, told the nation several times that the whole Boko Haram crisis was allowed to escalate by the PDP-controlled Federal Government so they can use it as a political tool ahead of the 2015 elections.”
My response to his lies is as follows. Opinions are subjective but facts are sacred. The facts are that then President Jonathan immediately sprung to action to rescue the kidnapped Chibok Girls and it was precisely the fallacious Lai Mohammed, whose words I caution the international community to take with a pinch of salt, that attempted to frustrate the efforts by the then government to rescue the girls.