Chibok Girls Are Alive And We Will Bring Them Back – president Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan today assured
parents of abducted school girls that were
abducted by Boko Haram insurgents from
Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno
State and all Nigerians that the girls are still
alive, adding that his government was doing
everything within its power to get them back
alive.
President Jonathan disclosed this when he
appeared on Kaakaki, a live Discussion
programme on African Independent Television,
AIT, hinging his optimism on the fact that if the
girls have been killed, the insurgents would have
displayed their corpses so as to induce fear.
President Jonathan again, during the programme,
admitted that his government under rated the
capacity of that Boko Haram sect, a mistake he
said explains their entrenchment.
President Jonathan also expressed optimism that
with the increased capacity of the military,
territories that are still under the control of the
insurgents would soon be recaptured.
On why the girls are yet to be rescued despite
recent successes by the military, the President
said it is because “reasonable territories are still
in the hands of Boko Haram.
“We promised that we must get the girls. The
good story is that they have not killed them
because the terrorists, when they kill, they
display. They use it to intimidate the whole
society. The girls are alive. We will get the girls.
Luckily, we are narrowing down the area of their
control. So, we will get them” he said.
Continuing, President Jonathan said: “At the
beginning, probably we did not really (correctly)
estimate the capacity of Boko Haram. It is
obvious. Boko Haram started as a non-violent
group led by Yusuf, limited to around Maiduguri
area and Yobe. They did not even get to
Adamawa.
“Just like every group of youths or young people
is inclined to criminality, over the period, they
expanded their network and linked up with other
terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda in the North
and other similar brands in the world.
“So, they continued to build their capacity and it
got to point to know that for you to tackle them
in the kind of environment they operate, you need
some specialized equipment to use and we don’t
manufacture these equipment now. That is why
the movement has changed. So, it is not
deliberate,” he said.

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