U.S. deploys troops to find abducted Nigerian schoolgirls

TO augment efforts to find Nigerian schoolgirls who were taken hostage by Boko Haram, the United States has deployed 80 troops to Chad.

   The White House announced this Wednesday in a significant escalation of Washington’s contribution to a crisis that has drawn global consternation.

    Quoting a White House statement, the Washington Post stated: “these personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area.” President Barack Obama is believed to have notified Congress about the deployment. 

     The unit will remain in Chad “until its support resolving the kidnapping is no longer required,” the statement said. 

     The Pentagon recently dispatched a team of eight experts to the Nigerian capital to help search for the more than 200 schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram, a group that holds sway over remote areas in northern Nigeria. They are working with roughly two dozen other U.S. law enforcement and intelligence personnel, advising the Nigerian government on the recovery effort. 

     On Tuesday, a Defence Department spokesman, Rear. Adm. John Kirby, called the search for the missing girls tantamount to finding “a needle in a jungle.” 

    “We’re talking about an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and it’s dense forest jungle,” he told reporters.

     The abduction of the girls in mid-April from a boarding school in the town of Chibok went largely unnoticed outside of Africa for weeks. But their plight began making headlines in the United States recently as calls for their return gained significant traction on social media. 

     Several U.S. female lawmakers and first lady Michelle Obama have joined the cause, posting photos on Twitter using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.

  Besides ,in response to Nigeria’s demand that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) should blacklist the Islamic terrorist sect, Boko Haram, following its kidnap of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, the council will today discuss the group’s status.

   At a briefing on the girls’ rescue mission, coordinator of the centre and Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr. Mike Omeri, said the Federal Government was eagerly awaiting a stiffer action against the group, which violent campaign has claimed over 12,000 in Nigeria.

   And yesterday, a false alarm triggered by a kerosene stove at Wunti Market in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, threw the entire area into confusion as the item, thought to be a bomb, sent buyers and sellers scampering for safety, just as shop owners closed down their businesses and fled.

   The state’s Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Haruna Mohammed, said the Ordinance Disposal team immediately responded to the “false alarm” by moving to the scene and “cordoned the place,” only to discover that it was kerosene stove and not explosive devices as alleged.

   Also yesterday, some delegates at the ongoing National Conference in Abuja staged a protest at their National Judicial Institute (NJI) conference venue demanding the release of the abducted students, now in the den of terrorists for 37 days.

   Leader of the group, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, said Boko Haram must produce the girls alive, adding: “We cannot accept our girls to be swapped for the release of Boko Haram criminals, who are being held by security agencies across the nation’s prisons. We want them back alive.”

   Other delegates who participated in the protest included Mrs. Bola Ogunrinade, Vice President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr. Issa Aremu, leader of Market Women at the confab, Mrs. Felicia Sanni, and former PDP women leader, Mrs. Josephine Anenih.

   Meanwhile, the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rose from its meeting yesterday accusing the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) of celebrating terrorism and profiting from insurgency.

   Briefing journalists shortly after the meeting, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, lamented that despite the twin bomb explosions on Tuesday in Jos, Plateau State, which killed about 118 persons, as well as yesterday’s killing in Borno State, the APC still went ahead with its scheduled rally in Ekiti State.

   Metuh said that APC, taking advantage of the tragedies occasioned by the Islamic terrorists and insurgents, had suddenly gained its voice in the media by engaging in blame game as well as making political profits out of terrorism.

   The party cautioned Nigerians and the international community to be wary of the APC, which he accused of mischief in joining to make the country ungovernable so that the doomsday prediction that Nigeria would split would become reality.

   However, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Mozambican counterpart and one-time winner of the MO Ibrahim Award for Leadership, Mr. Fetus Moghae, yesterday traced the resurgence of insurgent groups such as Boko Haram to leaders’ inability to professionally manage their human and capital resources creditably and transparently.

   Both spoke at two separate sessions at the ongoing 2014 Annual General Meeting of the African Development Bank in Kigali, Rwanda. The two sessions were on “Service Delivery and African Leadership Progress Tracking.” 

   According to Obasanjo, Nigeria or any other African country has no business being poor, yet the continent has remained let down due to the corrupt tendencies of its leaders. Speaking specifically of Nigeria, he said the leaders often abandon their predecessors’ policies for new ones just to line themselves with wads of currencies through new contract plans.

    The Plateau Police Command urged the people to pay special attention to strange things at public places, especially motor parks, market places, schools and places of worship, and report any suspicious person(s) or object(s) within their neighbourhood to the nearest police station or these emergency numbers: 08151849417 and 07013490795.

   Moghae advised that while it was necessary to invest in security of the country, it should never be the priority in place of service delivery, which is a potent strategy of averting insecurity, noting that as President of Mozambique, he had no army because he didn’t need one.

   He further advised President Goodluck Jonathan to continue with the war against Boko Haram but not rule out negotiating with the killer group in spite of its continued atrocities.

   Nevertheless, Metuh noted that while the PDP had to call off its rally in Ekiti in honour of the bomb blast victims in Jos and Kano, the APC was celebrating in the same state just the next day after the blasts.

   “Do they only excel when we have violence in this country? After they spoke, we had violence in Jos, then in Kano and now in Borno,” he said. “APC is happy gallivanting, trouncing like castrated individuals. We are worried that APC celebrates each time there is bombing in the country. Does APC enjoy better publicity each time there is bombing.”

   He added: “Since violence and confusion are their only sources of impetus, Nigerians can now deduce why the APC, which is a party made up of elements who vowed to make the country ungovernable for the PDP-led administration, must continue to use all instruments at its disposal to promote division, cause mayhem and encourage all actions that will embolden insurgents and their supporters.

   “When we compared the APC manifesto to that of the Janjaweed, we went beyond mere political statement. The truth may still be hidden for some time but it has a way of expressing itself. We urge Nigerians, therefore, to make their deductions. Again, the question: Which party is benefiting from this spate of bombing.