THE Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex
Badeh, has said that the military will not use
force to rescue over 200 schoolgirls abducted by
Boko Haram on April 14 because of the need to
save their lives.
Badeh, who received members of the Citizens
Initiative for Security Awareness outside the
Defence Headquarters in Abuja on Monday,
insisted that the military had since located where
the girls were being held.
The CDS assured that the military had the
capacity to bring back the girls alive and
therefore advised that it should be allowed to do
its work.
He said, “We want our girls back; our military can
do it, but where they are held, we cannot go
with force.
“If we go with force, what will happen? they will
kill them . So nobody should come and say the
Nigerian military does not know what it is doing.
We know what we are doing; we can’t go and kill
our girls in the name of trying to get them back.
So we are working.
“The good news for the girls is that we know
where they are but we cannot tell you military
secrets here. Just leave us alone; we are working
and we will get the girls back.”
When prodded by journalists to expatiate on
what he meant “that ‘the military would not use
force’’ to free the girls, the CDS replied, “That
would be telling you our secrets and our
strategy. We cannot discuss our strategy in the
open.”
He said the military had the capacity to carry out
any mission as exemplified in its roles in the
restoration of democracy in Liberia and Sierra
Leone.
Badeh said the insurgence in the North- East was
different as it involved the killing of fellow
Nigerians, which according to him, was not what
the military was happy about.
The CDS stated also that some arms recovered
from insurgents showed clearly that some people
outside the country were fuelling the violence
with the aim of destabilizing Nigeria.
He said, “Some of the arms we have recovered
are very alien to the Nigerian Army, which means
there are people from outside fuelling this thing.
“That is why when Mr. President said we have al-
Qaeda in West Africa, I believe it 100 per cent
because I know that people from outside Nigeria
are involved in this war.
“They are fighting us; they want to destabilise
our country and some people in this country are
standing with the forces of darkness. We must
salvage our country; we must bring sanity to our
country.”
Badeh, who commended CISA, urged Nigerians
to support the military to overcome the current
security challenge in the country.
He said that President Jonathan was solidly
behind the military and had empowered them
‘‘to do the work.’’
Badeh said, “What this is showing is that people
have finally realised that you don’t have another
military apart from this one that you have. And it
is either you support your military or you are
looking for anarchy (sic).
“This war is not fought by military alone. This war
is fought by Nigerians. Nigeria is at war, all hands
must be on deck. If you can’t do anything else,
but you have mouth, you can support the
military and not disparage the military because
you don’t have another one.”
The National Coordinator of CISA, Chidi Omeje,
who delivered the group’s letter of solidarity to
the CDS, said the military deserved the
encouragement of the citizenry.
He noted that many military personnel had been
killed while fighting to enthrone peace in the
North-East and other troubled parts of the
country.
The Ney York Times had quoted a foreign
diplomat as saying that the Army was hampering
the hunt for the abducted schoolgirls.
“There is a view among diplomats here and with
their governments at home that the military is so
poorly trained and armed, and so riddled with
corruption, that not only is it incapable of finding
the girls, it is also losing the broader fight against
Boko Haram, “it quoted the unnamed diplomat
as saying in the report which was culled by The
1960NG on Monday.
Meanwhile, a British newspaper, The Mail on
Sunday, has reported that the kidnapped girls
came close to freedom recently before
government officials called off a deal to swap
them for detained Boko Haram members at the
11th hour.
It quoted security sources as saying that a
Nigerian journalist, Ahmad Salkida, trusted by
both the government and the sect leader,
Abubakar Shekau, acted as a go-between.
According to the newspaper, the officials
scrapped the exchange in a telephone call from a
crisis summit in Paris, France where Jonathan
met foreign ministers, including those from
Britain, the United States, France and Israel.
Shekau was said to have been enraged by the U-
turn after it was agreed after the Paris summit
that no deals should be struck with terrorists and
that force should instead be used against them.
The Mail on Sunday quoted an intelligence
source as warning on Sunday that “the next
video we see from the terrorists could show the
girls being killed one by one.”
It said sources in Abuja described how Shekau
had agreed to bring the girls out of the forest
camps in the early morning and take them to a
safe location for the prisoner swap.
‘‘They would have been dropped off in a village,
one group at a time, and left there while their
kidnappers disappeared. There was to be a signal
to a mediator at another location for prisoners,”
one of the sources said.
President Jonathan met with the foreign
ministers to discuss the crisis and a potential
move forward.
Sources said Salkida was able to travel by taxi to
the group’s forest camps to talk to Shekau two
weeks ago. ‘‘His mission was secretive and
dangerous,’’ they said.
One of the sources said, ‘‘He is probably the only
civilian with access to Shekau. There is trust
between them and Salkida had only one aim – to
get the schoolgirls out.
‘‘He reported afterwards that the group of girls
he saw were alive and well, and being adequately
fed and sheltered. They told him all they wanted
was to go home.’’
The Mail on Sunday said that presidential
spokesman Reuben Abati denied knowledge of
the rescue plan.
‘‘I am not aware of an attempted rescue plan
taking place last week,’’ the newspaper quoted
Abati as saying.
Abati also told one of our correspondents in
Abuja on Monday that he was” not aware of an
attempted rescue plan taking place last week.”
Investigation by The 1960NG however revealed
that Salkida actually met with Jonathan one-on-
one to discuss the arrangement.
The meeting was said to have taken place inside
the Presidential Villa, Abuja sometimes last week.
It was gathered that the mediator was led to
meet the President by a male minister from the
Northern part of the country (names withheld).
Our source said, “I am aware that the journalist
in question met with the President last week. I
think it was on Tuesday that the minister
brought him to meet the President.
“It was a one-on-one meeting and the journalist
left with the minister about an hour later.
“I guess that meeting was arranged to build the
confidence of the young man (the mediator) that
whatever he must have been discussing with
government officials has the backing of the
President.”
The source however said he was not in position
to know if the negotiation had been halted or
not.
Salkida is said to know Boko Haram leaders and
has unprecedented access to them.
He had been arrested on several occasions
accused of being a Boko Haram sympathizer
before he fled with his family to Dubai, United
Arab Emirates, two years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment