Relatives of more than 200 Nigerian
schoolgirls who have been missing for more
than a month after being kidnapped by
Islamic militants have voiced anger and
despair after the country's president
cancelled a visit to their home town, citing
security concerns.
As the international effort to find and
rescue the girls gathered momentum, with
military and intelligence resources from the
US, UK, France, Israel and Canada pouring
into Nigeria , and the #bringbackourgirls
social media campaign exceeded 1m tweets,
there was mounting criticism of President
Jonathan Goodluck's slow response to the
crisis.
In Chibok on Friday, the home town of the
missing girls, families said they had lost
faith in the government to do everything
possible to rescue their daughters, sisters
and nieces. In Washington, a senior US
official admonished Nigeria's failure to
tackle the insurgency.
Many relatives had gathered at the Chibok
government girls secondary school, from
which the teenagers were abducted in a
night raid on 14 April, to greet Jonathan on
his first visit to the area during the crisis.
"You begin to question what could be more
important to the president than the lives of
these students," Dr Allen Manasseh, whose
18-year-old sister Maryamu Wavi was
abducted from the school, told the
Guardian.
"The parents were hoping he would come
with some information for them about
where the girls may be and what efforts are
being done to recover them, but instead to
be told he is not coming was not easy for
them. It's not an easy thing to have a
missing child."
He said the families were upset that it had
taken more than a month for Jonathan to
schedule a visit to Chibok, but that to have
promised to come and then postponed
without adequate explanation had further
diminished their faith in the authorities.
Bulus Mungo Park, a civil servant
volunteering with a local vigilante force
protecting Chibok from Boko Haram and
the uncle of two missing girls, said the
villagers were extremely disappointed.
"The parents were happy that our president
would come and see for himself. He was
our last resort," he said. "And now we don't
know what is happening. We're hoping he
can still come some time."
Following the release of a video by Boko
Haram earlier this week, showing around
130 of the abducted teenagers, Mungo Park
escorted a group of girls who had managed
to escape and relatives of those still missing
to the nearby town of Maiduguri to identify
the captives.
"They were able to identify about 75 by
name," he said. The faces of other girls were
known to their school colleagues. "Soon we
will know all their names."
Manasseh said his sister was not among the
girls in the video released. "It makes me
very worried for her because I do not know
whether she is alive or where she might be."
A leading Nigerian politician claimed Boko
Haram blundered and handed the search
mission a golden opportunity when it
released a video of the captured girls
because it contains significant clues to their
whereabouts.
Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a former defence
minister who has spent years combating the
militant group, said: "On TV they are
exposing themselves to an intelligent
military. Anyone who is familiar with this
area can pinpoint the place. Terrorists who
are clever put white cloths behind them but
in this one you can see the location of the
children in Sambisa forest."
He added: "We have people very well
trained. A layman will tell you that all of
the clues are there. A tree that I saw there is
special: it's not a tree you find in many
places."
Kwankwaso is now governor of the
northern Kano province, the scene of one of
Boko Haram's deadliest attacks, and tipped
as a possible challenger to the president in
next year's elections. He was scathing about
Jonathan's response to the present crisis.
"The issue is on CNN, Sky News," he said.
"All the international stories are helping us
to remind him that what is happening is
very significant in Nigeria.
"To him it was nothing. They wanted to
sweep it under the carpet like nothing
happened. But if everybody is talking about
it, it is an issue. I have never seen in the
history of the world where more than 200
people are kidnapped and it is not an
issue."
Kwankwaso challenged the president: "Yes,
you inherited the problem, but what did you
do when you came in? You have had five
years on the throne. Five years is enough to
make a difference. In 2015, by grace of God,
he should get out of the [presidential] villa."
Relatives and activists have raised fears that
the girls could be intended as sex slaves for
the militants, or trafficked to other
countries. However, the Nigerian
government has said it believes the girls are
still within the country's borders, most
likely hidden in the Sambisa forest.
Mohammed Dunoma, the chairman of the
local parent-teacher association, told the
Guardian earlier this week that many
villagers were now reluctant to allow their
daughters to go to school. Boko Haram,
whose name means "western education is
sinful", was an ever-present threat, he said:
"We don't know when they will come."
The area is a stronghold of Boko Haram.
Insurgents killed at least four soldiers in an
ambush on Monday.
In Washington, a senior US official
criticised inaction by the Nigerian
government. "In general, Nigeria has failed
to mount an effective campaign against
Boko Haram," Alice Friend, the Pentagon's
principal director for African affairs, told
the Senate foreign relations committee. "In
the face of a new and more sophisticated
threat than it has faced before, its security
forces have been slow to adapt with new
strategies, new doctrines and new tactics."
She added: "We're now looking at a
military force that's, quite frankly,
becoming afraid to even engage."
Dampening hopes of an imminent
breakthrough in the internally backed
search mission, state department
spokesperson Marie Harf said military and
intelligence teams faced "a tough
challenge".
The US has deployed manned and
unmanned surveillance aircraft over the
area. According to the New York Times , 30
specialists from the state department, FBI
and Pentagon, with medical, intelligence,
counter-terrorism and communications
expertise, have been sent to Nigeria.
Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, said
there would be no active deployment of US
forces in Nigeria. "At this point, we're not
actively considering the deployment of US
forces to participate in a combined rescue
mission," he told reporters.
Chuck Hagel, the US defence secretary, told
CBS News it was an open question whether
Nigerian forces were capable of rescuing the
girls. "We just don't know enough yet to be
able to assess what we will recommend to
the Nigerians, where they need to go, what
they need to do, to get those girls back,"
Hagel said.
US general David Rodriguez met Nigerian
officials in Abuja this week, as did British
Foreign Office minister Mark Simmonds.
Canada announced it had sent special
forces to Nigeria, and Israel also joined the
search and rescue mission.
Jonathan was due to fly to Paris on Friday
for a summit hosted by François Hollande,
the French president, to discuss the security
threat posed by Boko Haram. Nigeria's
neighbours – Benin, Cameroon, Niger and
Chad – were expected to attend, along with
US, UK and EU representatives.
A social media campaign over the
kidnapped girls has won global backing,
with more than 1m tweets under the
hashtag #bringbackourgirls. High profile
endorsements have come from Michelle
Obama, Angelina Jolie and Malala
Yousafzai.
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