₦airaland Forum

This message is on GEJ's Facebook page. It is a response to the guardian of UK claim that he refused help from abroad after the Chibok girls were abducted.

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.

Below are a factual timelines with dates, names and location. I challenge Lai Mohammed to rebut them with his own facts:

Timelines:

March 12, 2014: The then minister of state for education, Mr. Nyesom Wike, wrote the Governors of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa and advised them not to hold the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations in areas susceptible to the Boko Haram insurgency. This letter had the reference number HMSE/FME/147/VOL.1/150 and the subject: 'Security challenges and the conduct of the 2014 WASSCE and SSCE in Borno, Yobe and parts of Adamawa States'.

The Governors of Yobe and Adamawa acknowledged the letter and cooperated with the then Peoples Democratic Party led Federal Government to bus students to secure locations to write their scheduled school leaving examinations.

April 14, 2014: Contrary to the advise given by the Peoples Democratic Party led Federal Government of President Goodluck Jonathan, the All Progressive Congress led Government of Governor Kashim Shettima, for reasons best known to it, chose to ignore that advise and held the WASSCE examinations in Chibok, a mainly Christian town that was susceptible to attacks from the Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram. On the day in question, the girls of Government Girls Secondary School Chibok were kidnaped by Boko Haram while preparing to write their final physics examinations.

Curiously, both the Principal of the school and her Vice were not on the school's campus as the girls were inside a dormitory.

The Principal of the school, Hadjiya Asabe Kwambura, later claimed to have gone to Maiduguri for a 'medical check up' on the day of the abduction. It seemed very inauspicious for a principal of a school to schedule a non emergency 'medical check up' for a time when the school she presided over was having perhaps its most important activity of the year, school leaving examinations.

This same woman later changed her story when she told Fox News that she had gone to Maiduguri to buy medicines and was informed by her daughter about the kidnap. But how did her daughter, a student of the school, avoid being kidnapped?

It is noteworthy that this particular principal was never reprimanded or disciplined or in anyway made to take responsibility for this obvious dereliction of duty by the Borno state government who owns the school.

Flash forward to April 2, 2016: Governor Kashim Shettima confessed in an interview with Premium Times that he, the chief security officer of the state, DID NOT inform then President Jonathan when the girls were kidnapped for reasons best known to him.

April 17, 2014: Exactly three days after the kidnap, President Jonathan who had not been formally informed of the issue because of the deliberate refusal of the APC led government of Borno state to brief him called for an emergency meeting at the Presidential villa after the military independently alerted him.

Multiple dates in April, 2004: The military, principally the air force, were given conflicting information as to what direction the fleeing terrorists took when they captured the girls. Were these conflicting information a deliberate effort to send the military on a wild goose chase?

Flash Forward to January 6, 2017: One of the Chibok girls who escaped from her captors granted an interview to the New York Times and revealed that they were not taken to Sambisa Forest by the terrorists as previously thought. According to her testimony, they were rather taken to the Borno state capital of Maiduguri and kept at a house there for months.

Flash Forward to January 11, 2017: Chibok Community leader, Pastor Bulus Baba, in an interview with local media corroborated the New York Times report and said even after they left Maiduguri they were moved to another town and kept in the home of an influential local politician. According to him:

"The girls said, they spent over 8 months in Gwoza local government area along with other abducted women. They said they were kept at a resident of one of the top politicians in that local government area until at a point when a fighter jet dropped bomb that touch part of the house killing some of the girls.”

May 2, 2014: Then President Jonathan sets up a fact finding mission to determine the facts of the kidnap and stresses that the mission's work would not interfere with search and rescue efforts.

May 2, 2014: Frustrated by the school's authorities to come clean with accurate information about the identities of the missing girls, the Christian Association of Nigeria released the names of the kidnapped girls for the first time.

May 3, 2014: Charles Eguridu, head of the West African Examination Council's National Office in Nigeria revealed in testimony broadcast live on national television that WAEC had asked the Borno state Governor not to hold examinations at Chibok due to safety issues, but that Governor Shettima, in writing, had assured WAEC that he would provide adequate security for Chibok, a promise he did not keep. According to Mr. Eguridu:

"The Borno state government also refused to relocate the students from Chibok to safer places like Maiduguri. “Borno state government only agreed to relocate the remaining 189 pupils after the abduction of the girls."

Talk about medicine after death.

May 4, 2014: After consistent confused and contradictory information from the Borno state Government and various other authority figures, the Presidency invited the principal actors in the Chibok saga to the Presidential villa to ascertain the truth. The Presidency was shocked at the non appearance by officials of the Borno state government. The governor's wife who was invited shunned the event and when the then First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan saw the scanty representation from Borno she famously exclaimed 'na only you waka come'?

May 5, 2014: many residents of Gamboru Ngala were killed by Boko Haram forces after troops stationed there left that town to go to the Sambisa forest area closest to Chibok town to look for the missing girls. The precision behind the arrival by Boko Haram just as the troops left the town gave rise to strong suggestions that the terrorists were tipped off by a mole.

May 6, 2014: The then National Publicity Secretary of the APC and now the current minister of information, Lai Mohammed, released a statement calling the Presidency's intervention a 'distraction'.

May 6, 2014: In response to a request by the Nigerian Government for help, then United States President, Barack Obama announced that the US was dispatching personnel into the area to help search for the missing girls.

May 9, 2014: Nigeria welcomed experts from the United States and the United Kingdom to help search for the girls.

May 11, 2014: Borno state Governor, Kashim Shettima tells the local and international media the girls had "been sighted". In view of later testimony by the released girls that they had initially been kept in Maiduguri, Shettima's accounts now elicit more suspicion especially as Boko Haram released a video a day after the revelation by Governor Shettima.

May 12, 2014: Boko Haram releases a video purporting to be of the Chibok girls. However, in that video, the girls do not look terrified and one of them is shown distracted as she appears to be sending a text or making a call on her mobile phone which was visible to the camera. This video is still publicly available on YouTube. Giving the testimony that they were held in Maiduguri the state capital before being taken to Gwoza, how could this video have been shot in day light without attracting some attention?

May 26, 2014: The Nigerian military revealed through Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, that it knew the location of the girls but could not attack because of fear of loss of lives of the girls after a similar operation in Sokoto to save an Italian and a Briton led to loss of lives of the hostages taken by an affiliate of Boko Haram.

Unspecified Date in May 2014: The Jonathan administration began secret negotiations to secure the release of the Chibok girls.

September 7, 2014: In an interview with foremost Northern Nigeria daily, Leadership Newspaper, some of the parents of the kidnapped girls alleged that the entire saga was a conspiracy. In that interview, a Chibok parent, Bulama Jonah, said:

“We still believe that there was an internal collaboration in the abduction of our daughters by the Boko Haram gunmen, because we have correct information that some of the teachers, who are very senior in the school, managed to move their own daughters and family out of the school premises before the attack. “That is why we are insisting that (the Borno state) government must provide our daughters and we would not take it lightly if they don’t produce our girls for us. The girls were in their custody, because school premises belong to government; and we believe they were aware of the attack but failed to provide security for them.”

October 6, 2014: Then President Jonathan visits Niamey as part of efforts to secure the release of the Chibok girls with the help of the Nigerien government.

October 15, 2014: During the Presidential Declaration by then candidate Muhammadu Buhari, now the incumbent President, Audu Ogbeh, at that time the Director General of the campaign (he was later replaced) said on live Television that the pressure group Bring Back our Girls, led by a virulent critic of the Jonathan administration, Oby Ezekwesili, lso said that the #BBOG campaign is led by “members of our party, the APC.” This is an exact quote and reflects the politicization of the saga.

Flash Forward to July 12, 2016: President Muhammadu Buhari appoints Bring Back our Girls co-founder, Ms. Hadiza Bala Usman, as the head of Nigeria's largest and perhaps most profitable parastatal, the Nigerian Ports Authority. Many consider this as a reward to Ms. Usman and a corroboration of the "members of our party, the APC" comment of Chief Audu Ogbeh.

October 17, 2014: A truce was announced with Boko Haram after negotiations which was to allow for the release of the Chibok girls. The truce was broken by Boko Haram who reneged on their promise to release their captives.

From the above, it is clear that Nigeria's minister of information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has an estranged relationship with the truth.

Reno Omokri
For and on behalf of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

HAHAHAHAHHAHA ALHAJI LIE MOHAMMED HAS GONE INTERNATIONAL

That Guy LIE sha! Still imagining how someone will reject Help...

Lie Mohammed

Just disappoint us for ones and tell Nigerians the truth, I swear you won't die, trust me

Until you can pronounced Lai differently from Lie, then Lai will start telling the truth.

For now Lai na Lie.

Just in case you were doubting the source

True true name dey affect ooh..




Talk about naming ceremonies.. Kai!

The biggest tragedy of this century that befell Nigerians, is this APC house of liars.

Taar. Idonbelivit
Gej no get mind reach dat level
If na madam patience now, I go believe

Na Only yuu waka kom?

Chai chai diaris God ooo!!! !!!!

The fact as elicited from accounts in the public domain that both the APC and the PDP played politics with the lives of 224 young girls is sickening!

Foreign interests issued a condemning allegation of incomepetency against Jonathan.

Rather than approach FG and request that the Presidency issue an official response and clear Jonathan, his camp responded back with more show of buffoneery and incompetence.

Reno Omokri did not help Jonathan with this response at all.

This charge of interferring with foreign interest to rescue Chibok girls was a matter for the Presidency,not for Jonathan to personally answer....but you see, this guy and those around him like Omokri lack political wisdom and dont know how to handle an international matter like this.

They should have given the task to FFK to handle instead of Omokri. FFK would have put the burden of response squarely on FG.

Sorry GEJ. You hear?

May 4, 2014: After consistent confused and contradictory information from the Borno state Government and various other authority figures, the Presidency invited the principal actors in the Chibok saga to the Presidential villa to ascertain the truth. The Presidency was shocked at the non appearance by officials of the Borno state government. The governor's wife who was invited shunned the event and when the then First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan saw the scanty representation from Borno she famously exclaimed 'na only you waka come'?

Did we not say Patience was at the helm of affairs in the Presidency of her husband? Jonathan was in the other room, na madam dey run things.

Omokri really has sc.re.wed up by releasing this fact of Patience being at the table of a Presidential task force on security.

Lie Muhammed again, hmmm, Lie M! LieM!! how many times did i called you. Okay nah.

Am just laughing

ImperialYoruba:
Did we not say Patience was at the helm of affairs in the Presidency of her husband? Jonathan was in the other room, na madam dey run things.

Omokri really has sc.re.wed up by releasing this fact of Patience being at the table of a Presidential task force on security.

Afonjas are really shameless.

Now, I truly believe those that said 'chibok girls kidnap' was a scam. Those that forced gej out of power, how far?Is karma not a wonderful visitor?

ImperialYoruba:
Foreign interests issued a condemning allegation of incomepetency against Jonathan.

Rather than approach FG and request that the Presidency issue an official response and clear Jonathan, his camp responded back with more show of buffoneery and incompetence.

Reno Omokri did not help Jonathan with this response at all.

This charge of interferring with foreign interest to rescue Chibok girls was a matter for the Presidency,not for Jonathan to personally answer....but you see, this guy and those around him like Omokri lack political wisdom and dont know how to handle an international matter like this.

They should have given the task to FFK to handle instead of Omokri. FFK would have put the burden of response squarely on FG.

Sorry GEJ. You hear?

BMC

ImperialYoruba:
Foreign interests issued a condemning allegation of incomepetency against Jonathan.

Rather than approach FG and request that the Presidency issue an official response and clear Jonathan, his camp responded back with more show of buffoneery and incompetence.

Reno Omokri did not help Jonathan with this response at all.

This charge of interferring with foreign interest to rescue Chibok girls was a matter for the Presidency,not for Jonathan to personally answer....but you see, this guy and those around him like Omokri lack political wisdom and dont know how to handle an international matter like this.

They should have given the task to FFK to handle instead of Omokri. FFK would have put the burden of response squarely on FG.

Sorry GEJ. You hear?

You sound like a fool.

Until we all stop looking at the politics behind Chibok girls and focus on the scandal of a nation in that whole episode, no progress can be recorded in Nigeria.

Sit for a while and ponder, over 200 school girls abducted and till today, story story.

Nobody all over the whole takes Nigeria and can take Nigeria serious ever again.

You wonder why investors left in droves, you wonder why our currency is in free fall, falling lower than Chadian and Benenois currency. We are waiting for official international confirmation that Nigeria is a failed State? Wait no more. The Chibok saga signposts us as a failed State already. Chibok only happens in a failed State.

And until the matter is resolved, those who concocted it and thought they will benefit from it will never have peace. See Buhari today. He's the chief beneficiary and it's clear his presidency was procured through this fraud. How is his presidency faring today? More are coming and more revelations are on the way.

ImperialYoruba:
Did we not say Patience was at the helm of affairs in the Presidency of her husband? Jonathan was in the other room, na madam dey run things.

Omokri really has sc.re.wed up by releasing this fact of Patience being at the table of a Presidential task force on security.

BMC.

Of everything written, it's only that you saw.

See, you guys should forget President Jonathan and focus on governing Nigeria.

No amount of painting Jonathan in bad light will make Buhari look good. Incompetence, I'll health (unfortunately) and widespread hardship is all history will remember Buhari for.

You guys should chew on this rather than focus on Jonathan that has done his own and left.

This is quite revealing both Jonathan incompetence and APC lies. According to the write up, there was a fact-finding mission, what was found? If there was a conspiracy, how many heads rolled for it. This just revealed GEJ administration was actually clueless and lacked a sense direction, hence the opposition using it against him. Chibok kidnap wasn't a Borno State issue but a national one, at least DSS should have picked up the school officials for questioning, who knows, those girls might have been found quicker.

1 BMC spotted...

fake idiots

otil1:
You sound like a fool.

Until we all stop looking at the politics behind Chibok girls and focus on the scandal of a nation in that whole episode, no progress can be recorded in Nigeria.

Sit for a while and ponder, over 200 school girls abducted and till today, story story.

Nobody all over the whole takes Nigeria and can take Nigeria serious ever again.

You wonder why investors left in droves, you wonder why our currency is in free fall, falling lower than Chadian and Benenois currency. We are waiting for official international confirmation that Nigeria is a failed State? Wait no more. The Chibok saga signposts us as a failed State already. Chibok only happens in a failed State.

And until the matter is resolved, those who concocted it and thought they will benefit from it will never have peace. See Buhari today. He's the chief beneficiary and it's clear his presidency was procured through this fraud. How is his presidency faring today? More are coming and more revelations are on the way.

Shattap!!

GEJ rejected the foreing offer because after he foolishly allowed British Special Forces into Sokoto to cause mayhem and kill people needlessly in a botched attempt to rescue hostages the Northerners warned him not to repeat it. So when the subsequent request came from foreigners he turned away from it in order not to anger North.

All these facts are on record. Omokri must think he is addressing fools with that response. I guess its designed to arouse Biafran emotions.

If we begin bring facts out on Jonathan una go cry. Just let matters be. He should be jailed along with Dasuki. Yoruba elders intervened and asked for soft pedalling on him.

Look, Dasuki is a prince of Sokoto. Have you ever heard Northerner putting their prince in prison before? So for that modafvckr to be locked up and his father died he was not allowed out to go bury him, he clearly must have gone beyond the acceptable thresholds of forgiveness. Many atrocities during GEJ time that both are anseerable to but they are not letting Dasuki go, you can bet on it. The Sultan in particular and Emir Sanusi want him locked up for life. They dont make it public but it is not a secret up there.

Jonathan brought in mercenaries from South Africa to fight bokoharam....and his NSA saw nothing wrong. What an insanity!

Those people are looking for opportunities to snatch Jonathan up but Yorubas are covering up for him. Tell Omokri to shut up and stop any further indictment of his oga. If he is not seasoned in PR and political staging he should let people like FFK do a better job and save Jonathan neck.

Yeye dullards!

That BMC above me na incorriggible lunatic
Btw, LAI is a LIAR & whatever LAI says is a BIG FAT LIE

a well articulated response to an unrepenting thoughtless liar.... there are the facts rendered which should be counter contended by facts not propaganda lies of the lie making man... a pure shame...

otitokoroleti:
That BMC above me na incorriggible lunatic
Btw, LAI is a LIAR & whatever LAI says is a BIG FAT LIE

When you guys say BMC, are you referring to that software ? As in the responses are computer generated or something ?

e pain am

This is a nice rebuttal laden with facts that will make buhari cancer blokus to refuse healing

Well thaught out and articulated response. One funy thing about lie is that it is difficult to defend and remember if you doubt me ask lie mohammed, vedxacool sarrki, imperialyoruba who is the most confused and idiotic of them all. Product of Buhari media centre over to you com and say what you dont know