Although it has been over two months now that over 200 Chibok Secondary School girls were abducted by the Boko Haram insurgents, the Federal Government is working assiduously to ensure that they are brought back to rejoin their families safely.
The fact that they might have been distributed and taken to different places is a major reason that the military is not considering the use of force in their rescue efforts, says Coordinator of the National Information Centre (NIC) Mr. Mike Omeri in Abuja on Monday.
Omeri was reacting to allegations by some Chibok and Borno elders who were reported to have castigated Federal Government for allegedly not doing enough in the search and rescue efforts for the girls.
“The Federal Government is very serious about the search for the Chibok girls. It is committing men and assets to end terrorism and also rescue the girls”, Omeri stated while adding that the international assistance response team has been working together with Nigerian military to find appropriate means of ending the insurgency.”
At the regular briefing by the Centre in Abuja Omeri noted that the report of the Federal Government Fact Finding Committee on Chibok will be submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan this week and therefore appealed to Nigerians and members of the international community to be more patient on the matter.
He also disclosed that troops in Maiduguri have apprehended seven terrorists who infiltrated the town to carry out some terrorist missions.
“In the course of interrogation, the explained that they were asked to carry out some bombing and sabotage activities in furtherance of directives of the leadership of the terrorist group Further investigations, patrol and surveillance in the locality have been stepped up by the troops”, IOmeri said.
The Director General of National Orientation Agency (NOA) commended Nigerians for effectively using the security alert telephone numbers.
On June 14 at about 10 pm, a young Nigerian placed an alert call to Department of State Security Services (DSS) leading to the diffusion of improvised explosive devices by the Police Bomb Squad at the Living Faith Church auditorium in Owerri, Imo State.
“The quick response by security forces must be attributed to timely intelligence report”, Omeri declared.
Speaking on the Owerri incident, Police Spokesman, Frank Mba warned however, that “the media and citizens should not be in a hurry to link the Owerri incident to Boko Haram until the full identity of those behind it is made public or known to security forces, until motives are established, it will be rather pre-emptive to begin to give it the cover of terrorism. It could be anything and for us it is a great work. We are leaving our options open to real tests and hypothesis.”
Also Spokesperson for the DSS, Marylyn Ogar stressed the importance of citizens’ vigilance on security issues saying “once we see strange movements and faces, and in fact when you see cars [parked in places where they are not expected to be parked, you must call security agents. I want to congratulate that young man who instead of drinking beer and pepper soup was alert and notice the strange movements within the church premises and not just calling the church leaders but calling security forces.”
Omeri announced the release of a Lebanese construction worker, Khaleel Diyab who was kidnapped in Langtang, Plateau State but was released at Angwan Bala in Wase Local Government Area of the state.
On the extradition process of Ahmed Ogwuche, co-mastermind of the Nyanya Motor Park bomb attack of April 14 from Sudan where he was said to have been apprehended, Mba urged Nigerians to be patient.
“Process of extradition is a very complicated and time consuming process. As we speak to you, that process has been set in motion and security agencies and other governmental agencies of Nigeria are working with their counterparts from Sudan to ensure that that process is successfully concluded. We are positive that we would succeed and we would bring Ogwuche back to Nigeria and he would face the justice system here in the country.”
Omeri gave the assurance that Nigeria would emerge victorious in the battle against insurgency but warned Nigerians to remember that the evil first surfaced in 1999 and not today and so, it has had a good period of time to fester.
“Insurgency started since 1999 and so they have already established their tentacles and operational modules and we should therefore not be surprised that they are able to operate like they are doing. But that is not to say that they will go unchecked. The harder they come, the harder we will hit them and at the end of the day, Nigeria will overcome.
“Concerning the Owerri incident, security agencies are still doing their investigations and so we will not want to comment on it yet with any conclusions. The outcome of the investigations will be made known to Nigerians”, Omeri said.(PRNigeria)
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