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Boko Haram is defeated despite Chibok girls still in captivity, FG says

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Boko Haram is defeated despite Chibok girls still in captivity, FG says

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has said even though the Chibok girls still remain in captivity, that the Federal Government has defeated Boko Haram.

This is even as the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government said it is pursuing the same goal as the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group, which is to secure the safe return of the Chibok girls.

Alhaji Mohammed made this assertion when he appeared side by side with the BBOG Co-Convener, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili during a special programme to mark Nigeria’s 56th independence anniversary on a TV programme, adding that the President Buhari government’s commitment to bringing back the girls is not in doubt.

Segun Adeyemi, Special Assistant (SA) to the Minister of Information and Culture made his statement available to newsmen on Sunday.

”I want the Bring Back Our Girls to understand that this government appreciates what they are doing. We are all batting on the same side and we are as concerned as they are and we are well ready to work with you. Clearly we need a closer working relationship so that there will be no communication gap. Clearly, I do not see the objective of the BBOG group as different from ours.”

He echoed the President’s statement that there will be no closure to the Boko Haram issue until the Chibok girls are released and returned safely to their families, noting that apart from the parents of the girls, no other individual or group has a higher stake in the release of the girls than the Federal Government.

According to Alhaji Mohammed, there is no contradiction between the fact that Boko Haram has been defeated and the fact that the girls remain in captivity.

Read also: Nig@56: You know I’m trying to do the right thing for our country, Buhari says

“There shall be no closure on the Boko Haram issue until and when the Chibok girls are released and returned to the safety of their families. I think that does not contradict what Mr President has said that we have defeated Boko. Of course anybody who is familiar with the philosophy of insurgency will understand that it is not the regular kind of war where you sign an armistice and the guns become silent forever, but rather it is a kind of guerrilla war.

”But what Mr President said, which cannot be contradicted, is that as of May 29, 2015, when he took over, we had a chunk of our territory in the hands of Boko Haram. As at 2015, a part of the Northeast could not be accessed because of the activities of the terrorists, but the same cannot be said about the area today,” he said.

By Ebere Ndukwu …

 

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