Don’t blame Buhari, Presidency says over failure to rescue all Chibok girls

The Presidency has defended President Muhammadu Buhari over his administration’s inability to rescue all the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, made this assertion on Thursday during an interview on Channels TV, Sunrise Daily.

He said, “It is like a self-accounting when you are exiting a position of public office to be humble enough to know that you have not done everything perfectly.

“In 2015, we knew where Nigeria was, today we know where we are… Two hundred and sixty-seven were spirited away, about 57 escaped immediately, and over 100 have been returned by the administration.

“The ones that are left, I think 90-something, they are Nigerians, they have the right to be brought back.

“But then, if a government came in when the trail was already cold and you couldn’t trace where the girls were taken, you can’t then blame it solely for not bringing them back, that would not be quite right. Dachi girls were taken under the administration, and within the week they were recovered except maybe five including Leah Sharibu sadly.”

Adesina further noted that the government was proactive to tackle the kidnap at the time it occurred, adding that the incoming administration should take up the responsibility to recover the girls

“I believe that with the Chibok Girls, we should rather appreciate God and appreciate the government for what was achieved. It is not as if the government folded its hands and didn’t do anything, it did its level best.

“And because the government is a continuum, the incoming government, if it recovers more of those girls, the country will gladly receive them,” Adesina explained.

Boko Haram terrorists had in April 2014 kidnapped 276 female students mostly Christians aged from 16 to 18 from the Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State.

About 57 of the schoolgirls escaped immediately following the incident by jumping from the trucks on which they were being transported, while some others have been rescued by the Nigerian Armed Forces on various occasions.

The outrageous event has stirred global outcry with hopes being raised that the over 200 remaining girls might be released, however there are fears that some the girls might have already died while in captivity.

The Chibok Girls abduction is one of several such tragedies that the nation has witnessed in the course of the Boko Haram insurgency.

Over the years, some of the girls have been rescued by the Nigerian Military but some are still at large.