The Federal Government has urged former President Goodluck Jonathan to stop engaging in finger-pointing over the issue of the Chibok girls who were abducted under his watch, calling such action an unnecessary distraction from ongoing efforts to secure the release of the girls
who remain in captivity, long after they were abducted.
The advice was contained in a statement in Abuja on Monday by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, following the former President’s reaction to the report by a British
newspaper that the British armed forces’ offer to attempt to rescue
the girls were rebuffed by then President Jonathan.
”While former President Jonathan reserves the right to defend his
Administration, he should not engage in finger-pointing by saying, in
a statement, 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 Minister said.
He said if anyone ever played politics with the issue of Chibok girls,
it was the Administration under whose watch the girls were abducted.
”After the girls were kidnapped and the Jonathan Administration did
nothing for all of 15 days or make any determined efforts to rescue
them thereafter, our party, the then opposition APC, told the nation
several times that the whole Boko Haram crisis was allowed to escalate
by the PDP-controlled Federal Government so they can use it as a
political tool ahead of the 2015 elections.
”In a statement on 8 Sept. 2014, we said: ‘President Jonathan-PDP’s
political manipulation of the Boko Haram has to be understood as part
of its poker-like calculus for clinging on to political power ahead of
the 2015 elections. The Boko Haram crisis is readily used by the PDP
to rationalize the Jonathan Government’s abdication of its
constitutional responsibilities, including visits and assistance to
areas affected as well as effective response to abductions (e.g. the
GEJ government was silent over the Chibok girls kidnaps for over 15
days)’,
”Two-and-a-half years after that statement, we have been vindicated
by the report that claimed President Jonathan rebuffed an attempt by
the British government to help rescue the girls. We hope the former
President will now refrain from stoking further controversy over the
lingering abduction issue and allow the government of the day to focus
on its ongoing negotiations to secure the release of the Chibok girls,” Mohammed said.
