After unfruitful attempt to down play the recent kidnapping incident in Yobe State, the Federal Government, yesterday, confirmed that 110 schoolgirls of Government Girls Technical School, Dapchi, were unaccounted for in the Boko Haram attack on the school last Monday.
Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, disclosed this to newsmen in Damaturu after a closed door meeting between a Federal Government delegation, Yobe State Government, security agencies, community leaders and parents of the missing schoolgirls.
“It was a meeting between stakeholders to get a first hand information and, out of the total register of 906 students in school that day, 110 students are unaccounted” he said.
The minister said far reaching decisions were reached among which included the deployment of police and Civil Defence Corps to all schools.
He said security agencies were synergizing to ensure the rescue of every student abducted by the insurgents.
“No stone will be left unturned in our determination to rescue these girls” the minister assured.
He said the federal, state governments and parents would collaborate with security agents to work towards successful rescue of the students.
Mohammed reiterated that the insurgents were being contained and now looking for soft targets.
“Government will remain focused and resolute in the fight against insurgency to rescue the students and every Nigerian in their custody.”
It would be recalled that Government Girls Technical College, Dapchi, was last Monday, attacked by Boko Haram insurgents, who abducted the schoolgirls
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has charged the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government to stop shedding crocodile tears and instead, provide answers to urgent questions surrounding the recent abduction of schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe State.
The party, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, yesterday, said the Muhammadu Buhari-led Presidency has a lot of questions to answer regarding the alleged complicity of security agencies around the area coupled with misleading reports that frustrated immediate rescue of the abducted girls.
“The PDP, and indeed, all well-meaning Nigerians are appalled by the crocodile tears being shed by the incompetent and deceptive APC-Federal Government instead of scaling up actions on the matter.
“Nigerians have been in shock over revelations by the Yobe State Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam, that the abduction was preceded by withdrawal of troops around Dapchi, thereby rendering the area defenceless and paving the way for insurgents to attack and abduct our girls.
“We challenge the Presidency to come out clean on issues surrounding this abduction. Who authorized the said withdrawal of troops from the area and for what purpose? What alternative security measures were put in place to protect the people after the troops were withdrawn?
“Who controls security intelligence gathering and consequential protection action and what action was taken to guarantee adequate security in the area?
“We charge the Federal Government to open up on who scripted and released the false rescue report which frustrated prompt action that would have led to the recovery of our innocent girls? Why was that misleading report issued and whose interest did it serve?
“Indeed, from all indications, every right thinking Nigerian has deduced that there are more than meet the eyes in this ugly episode for which those in authority have a lot of questions to answer.
“We invite the world to note that after exposing the community to harm and frustrating prompt rescue, the incompetent APC-controlled Federal Government has not taken any concrete step to give the abductors the desired chase to recover our girls.
“Rather, they sent a delegation of persons with no knowledge of security to Dapchi on fact-funding missions,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, the convener of the #BringBackOur Girls (BBOG) movement, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, has said that the group no longer has faith in the ability and capacity of President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to deliver on its campaign promise to rescue the children, including students, and women abducted by Boko Haram insurgents.
Making reference to the massacre of residents in Benue State on New Year day and subsequently, and the ‘lackadaisical’ attitude of the Federal Government, Ezekwesili explained that the same situation that played out during the attack on Chibok in 2014, in which the then government seemed to be more interested in campaigning for its re-election than in the incident, appeared to be replaying under Buhari.
The former minister of education also alluded to the Buhari-led Federal Government’s lack-lustre handling of last Monday’s abduction of about 105 girls from Government Girls Secondary School, Dapchi, Yobe State, by Boko Haram sect, a group, the government and the military claimed to have defeated.
She made this position known in an interview with newsmen, last Saturday in Abuja.
Ezekwesili said: “Nobody was paying attention, more or less. Everything was about winning the election in 2015, so, here we are in 2018, 2019 is election year – the same pattern is repeated. So, I simply said I’ve had enough of this”.
She stressed that it was high time Nigerians went beyond merely wishing for good governance.
Speaking further, Ezekwesili, who described herself as an “impatient optimist” while the government, on the contrary, accused her of being confrontational, stated that the government had “looked for her trouble” with such comments.
She defended the cause for which her movement, the BBOG was fighting, saying that the present government, even prior to its coming into power, had promised to rescue the Chibok girls, only to come into power and become ‘relaxed’ about it.
Ezekwesili noted that even if the government had been making efforts, its manner of approach, especially towards the parents of the missing girls, was “appalling”.
“Going adversarial on us was not welcome at all,” she stressed.
“It is time for us to have better governance in the society. It is time to stop failing.
“Nigeria needs to claim the 21st century, and for us to do that, the quality of our leadership would matter.
“I haven’t been excited at the fact that we keep losing opportunities that we have, to catch up with the rest of our contemporaries in the world as a nation.
“APC and PDP are the dominant players in our political space. We don’t have a political party crisis, we have a political class crisis, and so, I said as a citizen, I’m putting out my red card, and when I put it out, other citizens said they had red cards to put out too”.
Ezekwesili challenged the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government to be proactive in efforts to rescue the remaining Chibok school girls, and also ensure that the just kidnapped Dapchi school girls by Boko Haram insurgents are returned to their parents as quickly as possible.
Also, Elder statesmen, Ayo Adebanjo has stated that President Muhammadu Buhari has lost his integrity.
He also advised the Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo to step down in solidarity with Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s struggle for true federalism.
Asked if some corruption scandals in current administration have stained the reputation of integrity with which Buhari campaigned for president in 2015 and won, Adebanjo said that the president’s integrity was already gone.
According to him, his (Buhari’s) integrity is gone. He should know that, except those who are still ‘chopping’ (eating) under his government. All those who thought he had integrity have seen that none of it is there.
“When a man who has integrity authorises his attorney general to go and meet a criminal in a strange land, and then reinstates that criminal? It’s a pity.”
Adebanjo, claimed that the ‘juju at Aso Rock has turned Vice-President Yemi Osinbanjo into worst devil’.
Speaking on Osinbajo, he added, “Don’t mind that one. I have told him to remember the son of who he is. His father and I were the followers of (Chief Obafemi) Awolowo on federalism.
“He was born in federalism. And when he was the attorney general in Lagos, he took Obasanjo to court over local government allocation that was depriving Lagos of its due resources. He won the case up to the Supreme Court. Now, he is the vice president.
“It just reminds me of what Reuben Abati wrote that there is something wrong; the moment some people get to Aso Rock, there is a ‘juju’ there that turns the good people among them into the worst devils.
“He should have resigned. I say that without any hesitation. The vice president — I know him from his youth — highly intelligent and highly qualified.
“He is a professor, who is very sound. He has a job of his own. He is not jobless. Why shouldn’t he resign? He went there with the thought to serve, maybe thinking of the West that, if there are any excesses of the president, he would be able to check it.
“No! He was brought into wealth and he was silenced because of office. So, the vice president has no excuse. Bola Tinubu has no excuse, particularly the vice president, who is a professional in his own right. He knows about all these ills. He has fought against them before. All these things are going on and you are seeing it?”
In another development, the Governor of Yobe State, Ibrahim Gaidam, has blamed the Nigeria military for the attack on Dapchi town and the abduction of schoolgirls from the community by Boko Haram.
Mr. Gaidam said the attack came barely a week after the military withdrew troops from the town.
He said if the soldiers had been on ground, the attack on the town and subsequent abduction of schoolgirls would not have been possible.
Mr. Gaidam said this when he hosted the Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, who was in Damaturu on a sympathy visit.
“I blame the whole attack on Dapchi on the military and the defence headquarters who withdrew troops from Dapchi. The attack occurred barely a week after the military withdrew the soldiers from there,” the Yobe governor said.
“Before then, Dapchi has been peaceful, there was never such incident. But just a week after they withdrew the troops, Boko Haram came to attack the town.
The governor said the Dapchi incident was not the first time the absence of soldiers in the Boko Haram troubled state would be expose residents to such kind of attacks.
He also recalled that in 2013, a secondary school in Buni-Yadi was attacked a week after the military removed soldiers guarding the town. At least 29 students were killed in that attack.
“Let me be quoted anywhere, the military must take blame for the attack on Dapchi. The same thing happened in 2013 when the military suddenly removed troops guarding the town and a week later Boko Haram went there to attack the town and the secondary school there killing 29 students.”
The military is yet to release any official statement on the Dapchi attack, but told our correspondent last week it was not aware any of the girls had been rescued contrary to a claim by the state government which was later withdrawn.
The Yobe State Government recently said it has spent N15.8 billion in the last three years on fighting the Boko Haram insurgency. Most of the expenditure are in form of support for the military, the state said.
Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Shettima who was in Damaturu on behalf of the Northern Governors’ Forum which he heads, expressed his sympathy to the government and people of Yobe State over the “unfortunate incident”.
“On behalf of the 19 Northern Governors’ forum, we have come to show our sympathy and let you know that we are with you in this traumatic period,” he said.
Mr. Shettima called on the security agencies to ensure the abducted girls are rescued on time.
Over 100 schoolgirls were kidnapped last Monday by the terrorists when they attacked the Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi.
The federal government is yet to acknowledge the exact number of girls kidnapped by the terrorists. Parents of the girls, however, released 105 names of missing girls believed to have been abducted by the terrorists.
The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, and that of interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, are currently in Yobe as part of efforts to review the situation.