The federal government today had a closed door meeting with parents and relatives of the school girls abducted from Chibok by the Boko Haram insurgents, where it tabled plans to get the girls released alive from captivity.
Over two hundred girls were abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok on the 14th of April last year.
A statement by Olawale Rasheed, Special Adviser to the Minister of State for Power Mohammed Wakil, disclosed that the Federal Government told the parents how far it had gone with the plan to secure the release of the schoolgirls.
Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan says kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls are not in Sambisa forest as previously claimed by military authorities, but they are still alive. The President said that with the successes recorded in the military operations, they are expected to be released soon.
President Jonathan who said the nation has gotten up to 65% of resources to prosecute the terror war, added that the troops have combed through the forest, but have not found the girls there.
As commendable as the recent moves and assurances appear, critics have continued to wonder why the Federal Government lived in denial over the kidnap of the girls for several months only to wake up on the ‘eve of the election’ to begin a fire brigade search for the girls.
Concerns have also been raised on the sincerity of turning away from the pain, sorrow and blood that trailed the activities of the insurgents in the North Eastern part of the country for years. Boko Haram has begun attacks in Nigerian even before President Jonathan assumed office. For about five years, the government who declared state of emergency in three most troubled state have been without results as the insurgents took communities after another. Just a week to the elections, fresh military operations began which have yielded impressive results.
