Chidi Samuel || Former President Goodluck Jonathan Sunday refuted the report in the Guardian Newspaper of London that he refused the offer of the British Government to rescue the Chibok girls shortly after they were kidnapped by the Boko Haram terror group in April 2014. According to the report, the British Air Force after several reconnaissance flights were able to locate the position of the girls days after they were snatched and were ready to send in rescuers but were stopped by the former President.
However, in a statement released on his behalf by his spokesman Mr. Ikechukwu Eze, Jonathan described the report as ‘lies’.
The statement read, “Our attention has been drawn to a report that has been trending, without proper attribution, to the effect that the last administration rebuffed British offer to rescue the kidnapped Chibok school girls,” he said.
“We wish to promptly point out that nothing can be further from the truth, as Nigerians are conversant with the effort made by the Jonathan administration towards rescuing the Chibok girls, especially in relation to collaborating with the international community.
“We can confidently say that the lies in this report are self-evident. This is because the international press, as well as the Nigeria media, actively covered the multinational efforts and collaboration which involved some of the major powers deploying their crack intelligence officers to work with our own security operatives and those of our neighbours.”
The statement further said there were meetings between local operatives and those from other countries including Chad, Niger, and Cameroon.
“In fact, the Jonathan administration was so genuinely supportive that the foreign powers involved were granted permission to overfly our airspace while conducting the search and rescue missions.”
“We would wish to recall that this collaboration was made possible following letters personally written by former president Jonathan to Barack Obama, former president of the United States; Francois Hollande, president of France, David Cameron, former British prime minister, as well as personal contacts made to the Governments of Israel and China, seeking their assistance in the search for the abducted Chibok girls.”
The former President attributed the “concocted story” to people “who have been playing politics with the issue of the abducted girls”.
“We are not surprised that this kind of concocted story is coming out at this point in time, as it appears that some people who have obviously been playing politics with the issue of the Chibok girls will stop at nothing to further their interest,” the statement concluded.