GEJ secured release of some Chibok girls but did not make it public - Abati tackles FG

Ummm Really? Abati disclosed that the Jonathan administration was advised against making the release public in order to protect the identities of the freed girls, by the then national security adviser, Col Sambo Dasuki.

The former special adviser on media and publicity to former president Goodluck Jonathan, Reuben Abati, says the former president secured the release of some Chibok girls but did not to publicise it.

According to The Cable, he made the disclosure during a show he anchored on Arise TV on Wednesday, August 15.

To prove his point, Abati urged Femi Adesina, the special adviser on media and publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, to confirm the information from the Department of State Services (DSS) and National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

He said: “There was headway. We rescued many of the girls; but the advice from the NSA at the time was that we should not publicise it because of the identities of those girls. I witnessed it on many occasions. Those girls were brought to the president.

“He met with them. In fact, some of them were sent to schools in the United States and United Kingdom.

“There were strict instructions not to publicise it because government thought that the identities of those girls should not be exposed. But l saw you guys making a dance out of the ones you rescued.

“In our time, we rescued some girls but we were under strict instruction not to publicise it. Check the records. The DSS, the intelligence agency, you should ask them. They will have the records.”

The co-convener of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group, Aisha Yesufu, told President Muhammadu Buhari to stop comparing himself with immediate past president Goodluck Jonathan.

Her comment was in response to the president’s statement in Dapchi, Yobe state; that his administration had responded better to the Dapchi situation than the Jonathan government did, after the Chibok schoolgirls were abducted.