He said, “What I want to assure you is that the community and its indigenes are ready. We want to take the bull by the horn. Whatever it will cost us, we are fully ready to face members of Boko Haram. I want to assure you that an earthquake will soon happen and Nigerians will be happy with what we plan to do.”
However, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Pan Chibok Youths Association, Dr. Allen Manasseh, told our correspondent that he was not aware of any ongoing talks between the government and the sect.
He said, “I am not aware of any negotiation because I am not privy to that information yet. As I am speaking to you, I am in Chibok and I don’t know when negotiation started or how far they have gone with the negotiation. But if they have started negotiation with Boko Haram, then it is okay by us.”
Manasseh, however, expressed doubts about the Federal Government’s resolve to rescue the girls. While describing the ongoing efforts as belated, the Chibok youth leader said the government had had enough time to rescue the girls.
He said, “That is where my scepticism will come in because the girls in captivity are over a hundred and if the Federal Government is willing to negotiate with whoever is holding them captive, then it has taken too long for them to do that.”
The Northern Elders Forum had on August 11, 2014, given President Jonathan up to October to produce the schoolgirls or forget his 2015 presidential re-election bid.
An ex-Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Mr. Solomon Dalung, at a press briefing on behalf of the forum said the failure of the President to produce the Chibok girls and tackle other security challenges in the land, amounted to the forfeiture of his rights to ask for another mandate to lead Nigeria beyond 2015.
“In the light of our firm conviction that the insurgency and related security challenges pose threats to the 2015 elections and the survival of our nation, we strongly advise President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to bring an end to the insurgency in all its manifestations and produce the Chibok girls before the end of October 2014,” Dalung stated.
But Jonathan had reacted through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, saying he was already working on how to rescue the abducted girls.
“President Jonathan does not require any threat or ultimatum from any group of persons to be alive to his responsibilities to the Nigerian people,” Okupe had said.
Efforts to get the Presidency to confirm the said negotiation on Friday proved abortive.
Several calls made to the telephones of both the Senior Special Assistant to the President on the Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, and the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, were not picked. Also, they did not respond to a text message sent to them.
Last Monday, a United States-based journal, Foreign Policy, listed the girls’ rescue as one of the missions that had been “forgotten” by the US government.
According to the magazine, the rescue of the girls is one of ‘The Pentagon’s top five “forgotten missions.”’
In a report titled ‘Forgotten Mission,’ which was published on Monday, the journal said there was no end in sight for the US mission in Nigeria to free the schoolgirls.
The abduction had called global attention, especially through a social media campaign with the hash tag, #BringBackOurGirls.
Foreign Policy recalled that President Barack Obama’s administration had deployed manned and unmanned aircraft to find the girls.
“It also dispatched advisors from the State and Defence departments, as well as the FBI. In late May, 80 troops (were) deployed in Chad to support and maintain unarmed Predator drones providing the mission with surveillance,” Foreign Policy added.
The journal further said, “Approximately 60 girls have escaped but the rest remain missing. Other missions said to have been forgotten by the US government included the hunting down of Joseph Kony of the LRA in Central Africa; destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons; NATO air policing; and the US operations in Afghanistan.
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