Jonathan Denies Snubbing Rescue Of Chibok Girls

Most of the Chibok girls kidnapped in 2014 remain in captivity. AFP

Nigeria’s former President Goodluck Jonathan has denied a report by a UK newspaper that he snubbed an offer by the British air force to rescue more than 200 girls abducted by the Boko Haram in April 2014 from a boarding school in the town of Chibok.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

BBC News report continues:

“The girls were located in the first few weeks of the RAF mission. We offered to rescue them, but the Nigerian government declined” a source involved in search for the girls in the UK Observer .  

But Mr Jonathan’s spokesman, Ikechukwu Eze, dismissed the allegations as false.

“We can confidently say the lies in this report are self evident,” he said in a statement.

He said the international collaboration to rescue the abducted girls involved neigbouring countries and Mr Jonathan's administration had been supportive of the efforts and allowed Western military to conduct reconnaissance flight over the country’s airspace.

“We are however not surprised that this kind of concocted story is coming out at this point in time, as it appears that some people who have obviously been playing politics with the issue of the Chibok girls will stop at nothing to further their interest,” Nigeria's Daily Trust newspaper quotes Mr Eze as saying.

A spokesman for the present administration told the BBC that the Observer's report confirmed their claim that Mr Jonathan had been "playing politics" with the Boko Haram insurgency.