jonathan ebele

 

Former Nigerian President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has denied reports that his administration turned down the help offered by the British government to rescue the abducted Chibok girls.

A United Kingdom-based journal, the Observer, reported last week that the Nigerian Government, under the leadership of Jonathan, rejected the British Armed Forces’ offer to rescue the nearly 300 Nigerian school girls by the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, in a mission named Operation Turus.

Denying the reports, the Media Adviser to Jonathan, Ikechukwu Eze, in a statement, said the “lies” in the report were glaring.

“Our attention has been drawn to a report that has been trending, without proper attribution to the fact that the last administration rebuffed British offer to rescue the kidnapped Chibok school girls,” he said.

“We can confidently say that the lies in this report are self evident. This is because the international press as well as the Nigerian media actively covered the multinational efforts and collaborations which involved major powers deploying their crack intelligence officers to work with our security operatives, and those of our neighbours,” he added.

The statement also said there were facts showing that the Jonathan administration was so supportive of all efforts made towards rescuing the girls, to the extent that it gave foreign powers access to cover its airspace in a letter written by Jonathan to Barrack Obama, former US President, Francois Hollande, the President of France, David Cameron, former Prime Minister of Britain as well as other world leaders.

Jonathan further stated that the story was concocted by elements that have been playing politics with the issue of the abducted Chibok girls.

“We are not surprised that this kind of concocted story is coming out at this point in time as it appears that some people who have obviously been playing politics with the issue of the Chibok girls will stop at nothing to further their interests,” he added.

Till date, about 195 of the girls are still missing and those that have managed to escape, have told gory stories of a life of enslavement, torture, rape and forced marriages while in captivity.