Again, Shettima, Fani-Kayode Lock Horns over Chibok Girls

The Director of Media and Publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation (PDPPCO), Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, has berated the Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, for ignoring security reports and the counsel of the federal government against holding the May/June, 2014, West African Examinations Council (WAEC) examination in Chibok.

The campaign organisation also accused Shettima of betraying the abducted Government Secondary School girls from Chibok.

Fani-Kayode said the abducted Chibok schoolgirls would have been saved the ordeal to which they have been subjected these past 329 days had the governor taken the advice and acted in accordance with the security reports that the town was not safe for the examinations.

He served notice to Governor Shettima to be ready for investigation and prosecution after leaving office if found complicit in the circumstances that led to the abduction of the girls.

In a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by his Special Assistant (Media), Mr. Sufuyan Ojeifo, in response to Governor Shettima’s attack on Fani-Kayode over his comments on the fate of the Chibok girls abducted by Boko Haram, the PDPPCO spokesperson was quoted to have said: “Shettima will not be governor forever and when he is no longer in office, his role in the Chibok affair will be investigated and, if found wanting, he would be prosecuted.”

He accused the governor of reflecting the thinking of his party over the whole mess that his insensitivity allowed to happen.

The statement read: “The governor of Borno State, Shettima, is the most irresponsible, insensitive and callous governor in Nigeria. He is a wicked man whose mindset reflects the thinking of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). He, more than anybody else, is responsible for the abduction of the Chibok girls.

“And he should bear full responsibility for it. The man should shut up and bow his head in shame because it was due to his irresponsibility as the chief security officer of Borno State that those little girls in Chibok were abducted, raped, sold into slavery and subjected to terror.

“The circumstances that led to the abduction of the innocent girls, who were writing their examination in an environment that was everything but secure, underscored the governor’s negligence.

“The governor must give account to God and to the Nigerian people for what he has done to those girls. We are accusing him of being responsible for the abduction of the Chibok girls because he was warned by the federal government and by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) not to allow the examination take place in Chibok.

“He ignored the warning and promised to guarantee security for those girls. When the time came, the governor did not even deploy one policeman, let alone adequate security.

“He betrayed the girls; he set them up; he opened the door for them to be abducted by Boko Haram and instead of asking for forgiveness and repenting of his wicked ways, he is talking nonsense.

“In any other country, this man would have been arrested and prosecuted for collaborating with Boko Haram. But here, in Nigeria, instead of him to show remorse, he went all over the world attacking the President and the federal government over the Chibok affair. Those he was speaking to did not know that he, more than anybody else, was responsible for the abduction of those girls.”

But in swift response, the Borno State Government described FaniKayode as displaying ignorance of what he did not have adequate knowledge of.

The spokesman of Governor Shettima, Isa Gusau, said there was no fact in the issue being raised by Fani-Kayode.

“He sits and speaks with so much arrogance and ignorance. But like I said yesterday, we don’t take Fani-Kayode seriously and nobody does in Nigeria. He had pronounced a different group guilty over Chibok girls long before now, so if he is reversing himself over that like he contradicted many others, there is nothing new.

“Fani-Kayode is only begging to be reported on newspapers and shown on television with the soul aim of creating an impression that he is working. He is to us and many, an adult with the mentality of an infant.

“Again, like I said, no reasonable adult dialogues with an infant because it will amount to going into dialogue with a blind, deaf and dumb which will be an eternal waste of time and we don’t have the luxury of time for his kind. We have serious issues we are dealing with. We are just waiting for him to contradict himself in future because he sure will. Character is like smoke, it never hides,” Gusau said.

He explained that contrary to the information by FaniKayode, the governor had been exonerated of any wrongdoing by an investigative panel set up by President Goodluck Jonathan to look into the issue of the abduction.

“Long before Fani-Kayode was appointed, his employer and our dear President, Goodluck Jonathan had in 2014, set up a Presidential Fact-finding Committee on the missing Chibok schoolgirls which was made up of serving and retired security officials, civil societies, elders from Chibok, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Muslims, journalists, labour groups, the National Council on Women Society (NCWS) and many others with the mandate of establishing facts concerning the circumstances that led to the kidnap of the schoolgirls.

“After being in Borno State for nearly two weeks, the committee was in Chibok and met with all those it marked as stakeholders, the committee met all security chiefs in Borno State, met officials of WAEC in Borno, met virtually everybody and analysed documents, at the end, from what a national newspaper reported on the findings of the committee, the committee gave a clean bill to Governor Shettima as he was rather a traumatised victim that was doing so well in managing the security challenges in the state.

“The report is there and no one has so far contradicted what THISDAY exclusively reported as per the report of the committee. Kayode that is sitted in Abuja and issuing statement. He didn’t have the patriotism to follow President Jonathan in his recent visit to the liberated communities at least to be on record that he was once in Borno State,” he stated.