An intermediary of Boko Haram has claimed that
two of the girls abducted from Government
Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, have died
from snakebite while 20 others are critically ill, The
Associated Press (AP) reports.
This shocking news has come as a blow to
millions of Nigerians and people from around the
world who have joined the BringBackOurGirls
movement, demanding the release of the
schoolgirls in good condition.
In a televised media chat on Sunday, President
Goodluck Jonathan said that an encouraging bit of
news so far was the fact that there had been no
report of loss of lives.
However, the terrorist sect’s leader, Abubakar
Shekau, has released a new video claiming credit
for the kidnap of the schoolgirls and threateninh to
sell out the girls.
The Boko Haram kingpin further said that the sect
was ready to negotiate ransoms for the girls. The
man who claimed to be an intermediary also said
that the Christians among the girls had been forced
to convert to Islam.
President Jonathan had, during Sunday’s
“Presidential Media Chat” dismissed insinuations
that the federal government was negotiating with
Boko Haram to secure the release of the abducted
schoolgirls, adding that the government could not
have been negotiating with faceless people.
I kidnapped your schoolgirls, Shekau claims in new
video Shekau, in a video, claimed responsibility for
the abduction of more than 200 final-year students
GSS, Chibok, Borno State.
In the video, the hoodlum said,”I abducted your
girls. By Allah, I will sell them in the market, and
Allah has commanded me to sell them in the
market.”
“There is a market for selling human beings. Allah
says I should sell them. He commands me to sell
them. I will sell women. I will sell women,” he
continued in local Hausa language.
However, the BBC Hausa Service points out that
the Boko Haram leader did not state the number of
girls abducted, nor where they were taken or are
now.
Dressed in his usual combat attire and armed with
AK47 rifle, Shekau who spoke in Hausa and some
Arabic said the girls would be held the way their
colleagues were being kept in various detention
cells of the military “without any negotiations “.
He said the girls are regarded as war booties, upon
whom his group has rights over and can even “sell
them in market “, if they so wish.
“We would also give their hands in marriage
because they are our slaves. We would marry
them out at the age of nine. We would marry them
out at the age of 12,” he said.
“Western education is sin, it is forbidden, women
must go and marry,” he said.
He said the abduction of the girls was justifiable
because “it is just the same way they incarcerated
our members in Nigerian prisons”
One of the parents of the abducted girls, Ms Martha
Yarama Ndirpaya, in her interview with the Hausa
service of the (BBC) has accused the federal
government of being insensitive to the plight of the
girls and its slow pace of rescuing them from the
heartless abductors.
In a broadcast appearance on Sunday, Jonathan
promised, “Anywhere the girls are, we will surely
get them out.”
The president described the girls’ abduction as a
trying and painful time and pleaded for the
cooperation of parents, guardians and local
communities in the rescue efforts.
Earlier yesterday, President Jonathan ordered top
security officials to do everything possible to
secure their release.
Officials also reported that they believe some of the
276 missing girls have been moved across the
border into Cameroon and Chad.
SOURCE
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