Emergency rule may be extended
President: We will get abducted schoolgirls Cleric releases names of missing students
President Goodluck Jonathan hinted last night that he may seek for an extension of the state of emergency in three states affected by the Boko Haram insurgency.
He said during a media chat that the ongoing military operation in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states was succeeding and there was need to sustain it.
“Terrorism is not a phenomenon that you think within a state of emergency of six months or one year you wipe it out. It has not happened anywhere in the world,” the president said.
A state of emergency was proclaimed in the three states May last year for an initial period of six months, which was extended for another six months in November.
It expires later this month, but there are calls from the affected
areas not to extend it on the grounds that the proclamation had not achieved the results desired.
Asked if he would extend the emergency rule proclamation, president said yesterday: “We are consulting with the security and relevant agencies. When we need to extend we will extend it because I believe that we are succeeding and it’s very helpful for the operation to go on.
“Without that the security operatives in those places would be so frustrated. We would prefer to pull them out than to allow them to stay there and be frustrated.”
Jonathan said those against the extension took the position out of frustration that terrorism had not stopped in the affected states.
But he added: “If somebody said that the state of emergency is not successful they are not being realistic.”
He said terrorism “is not getting worse in the country,” because the security agencies had helped to curtail its frequency compared to when it started.
The president said security agencies were capable of curtailing insurgency and that government was working hard to equip and improve their capacity.
“I have just approved the request for recruitment of more personnel and building capacity,” he said.
‘We will find the girls’
Jonathan also pledged to find the over 200 schoolgirls who were abducted by suspected Boko Haram gunmen three weeks ago at the Government Secondary School Chibok.
“Wherever these girls are, we will surely get them back,” Jonathan said.
“What we request is the maximum cooperation of the parents of these girls; we are pleading that they should cooperate with us by releasing the identity of these girls.”
Jonathan said since majority of the girls are Christians, there should be no cultural restrictions in giving out their photographs.
He said government had combed all the communities that the girls could possibly be without any trace of them.
Because of this, he said, security operatives had to begin to look beyond those places.
Asked if it was true that there negotiations were going on to get the girls freed, the president said: “You cannot negotiate with somebody you don’t know. Nobody has claimed ownership of this abduction, nobody. Even through the Twitter or the other social media that the Boko Haram normally use to show what they have done.”
Jonathan also said he had sought for help from the United States with “superior” intelligence to fight the Boko Haram insurgency.
He dodged the question on whether he would seek re-election in 2015, saying: “I have always said that this should not be a concern to Nigerians.
“Rather what they should be concerned about is how do we manage the economy, improve the security and guarantee free and fair election?
“Whether Jonathan declares or not should not be an issue. The PDP and the APC are the major parties now. The APC has not even announced its own presidential candidate and you are asking the ruling party to do so.”
‘Names of missing girls’
Meanwhile, a Christian cleric yesterday released names of 180 female names which he said were of the schoolgirls abducted in Borno State three weeks ago.
The list was released by Evangelist Matthew Owojaiye of the Old Time Revival Hour Church in Kaduna, and was published on Sahara Reporters website yesterday.
When Daily Trust contacted Mr. Owojaiye, he confirmed that he gave out the names but declined to say how or where he got them or if those were the total number of girls taken.
“The list of missing girls you see was what I was able to obtain. It may not be all,” he told our reporter by telephone.
Daily Trust could not independently verify the list which Owojaiye said comprises names of 165 Christian girls while the remaining are Muslims.
‘NNPC audit going on’
President Jonathan also said during the media chat that he never said Boko Haram had infiltrated his cabinet.
“I never said that Boko Haram has infiltrated my cabinet. But what I said is that they are even in government which includes the executive, legislature and the judiciary,” he said.
“I used the word ‘government’. You remember that a senator was being investigated. Even now, we ars still investigating some security personnel for involvement.”
On the corruption and alleged missing $20 billion oil money, the president said: “People mention very huge money that are unbelievable. Is it possible for anybody to steal $20 billion and people will not know?
“To answer your question directly the audit (of the NNPC) is still going on, we should give them time to conclude their clinical audit.”