Borno State
Governor, Kashim Shettima has accused former President Goodluck Jonathan of
deliberately omitting an investigative report submitted to him in June 2014, by
the presidential facts-finding committee he constituted in May 2014 on
circumstances surrounding the April 14, 2014 Chibok girls’ abduction.
Shettima
spoke in reaction to chapter four of Jonathan’s book “My Transition hours”,
titled “The Chibok school girls affair”, launched on Tuesday in Abuja.
The former
President had indicated that the schoolgirls abduction was a product of
conspiracy by the then opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, in connivance
with Borno State Government.
He also
accused the Borno Government and then President Barack Obama’s administration
in the United States of undermining efforts to rescue the Chibok girls in 2014.
However,
Governor Shettima through a rejoinder released by his Special Adviser on
Communications and Strategy, Malam Isa Gusau on Wednesday, said the truth was
that Jonathan never believed there was ever an abduction and that rescue
efforts were late.
He said:
“The whole of Tuesday night, I took the pains of reading His Excellency, former
President Goodluck Jonathan’s book, My transition hours, from the first to the
177th page. I took particular interest in chapter four (the Chibok school girls
affair) which has 42 paragraphs written on pages 27 to 36.
“I was
amused that despite admitting in paragraph 15, that he had (in May 2014)
constituted a Presidential Fact-Finding Committee under Brigadier General
Ibrahim Sabo and many others “to investigate” the Chibok abduction, former
President Jonathan refused to mention any part or whole of the findings by that
panel which had submitted a highly investigative report submitted to him on
Friday, June 20, 2014 after the panel held investigative meetings with the then
Chiefs of Defense Staff, Army Staff, Air Staff, the DG, DSS and IGP, met all
security heads in Borno, visited Chibok, met with parents of abducted
schoolgirls, met surviving students, interrogated officials of the school and
the supervising ministry of education, interrogated officials of WAEC and
analyzed all correspondences.
“What has
become very clear is that the former President decided to sit on facts in his
custody while he published, in an elementary standard, a book of fiction
designed to pass gulty verdicts to anyone but himself, with respect to the open
failures of his administration to rescue our daughters and in tackling the Boko
Haram challenges”.
The Governor
declared that by refusing to publish any part of his own panel’s findings on
the Chibok abduction, Jonathan’s book was “nothing short of a presidential tale
by midday”.
Shettima
recalled that “On Tuesday, the 6th of May, 2014, President Jonathan had
inaugurated multi-agency/stakeholder fact-finding panel under the chairmanship
of Brig. General Ibrahim Sabo (rtd), a one-time Director of Military
Intelligence and also appointed a secretary from the Niger Delta.
“President
Jonathan single handedly selected all members of that committee which
includedhis trustees amongst serving and retired security officers from the
Army, DSS and Police; representatives of the UN and ECOWAS, representatives of
the Chibok community, local and international civil rights organisations,
representatives of the National Council on Women Societies, the Nigeria Union
of Journalists amongst other persons he trusted. For almost two months, the
probe panel undertook forensic assessment of all documents on the entire
issues, held investigative meetings with parents of the schoolgirls during a
visit to Chibok.
“The panel
held separate one-on-one investigative meetings with myself, the then Chief of
Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, Chiefs of Air and Naval Staff, met the then
Director General of the DSS and the Inspector General of Police, all of whom
were appointees of President Jonathan. The panel interrogated officials of
Borno Government including the Comof Education and the school principal.
“The panel
also held investigative meetings with heads of all security agencies in Borno
State including security formations in charge of Chibok. At the end, the panel
submitted it’s report directly to President Jonathan on Friday, the 20th of
June, 2014 in Abuja. President Jonathan has refused to make public the findings
submitted to him. I was expecting the findings in his book but he has
deliberately swept that report under the carpet.
“However, I
remember that on June 24, 2014, the ThisDay Newspaper claimed to have obtained
a copy of the panel’s report and published as its lead, that painstaking
findings by the Presidential panel had indicted the military under Jonathan’s
watch and completely absolved the federal Borno State Government of any blame regarding
the Chibok abduction.
The
newspaper went further to say that panel actually commended efforts of the
Borno State Government in its commitment to the fight against Boko Haram as
testified by heads of security establishments” the statement from Gusau said.
Governor
Shettima also said it was clear to him after reading the former president’s
book, it was clear that he still lives with poor understanding of issues under
his presidency.
The Governor
cited that for instance, Jonathan’s claim on page 31 that Boko Haram wanted a
Muslim President rather than him as Christian was laughable since the
insurgents actually began their deadliest attacks in Borno under the regime of
late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, a Muslim from northern Nigeria.
“We know for
a fact that as vicious cycle of evil, Boko Haram fighters do not care about the
religion of their targeted victims. They attack Mosques and churches. They are
lunatics who regard anyone who doesn’t share their ideology as an infidel. So,
I wonder how the former President didn’t take time to understand the biggest
challenge under his presidency”, Shettima said.
The Governor
advised former President Jonathan to write a second book on account of his
presidency which should contain the facts as have been presented to him,
regarding the Chibok abduction rather than the fiction he made public on
Tuesday.
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