Nigerian VP Meets Freed School Girls
Yesterday evening, Nigerian Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, met with the 21 Chibok school girls who were released by Boko Haram.
The released girls were among the 200 plus school girls who were kidnapped by the terrorist group from their secondary school, Chibok, in Borno State on 14 April 2014.
The Vice President met with the freed girls in Abuja, at a medical facility operated by the State Security Service (SSS), the primary domestic intelligence agency of Nigeria. The meeting occurred shortly after the girls’ arrival in the Federal Capital Territory. Most of the girls were overwhelmed with emotion and weeping.
Local sources have claimed that the 21 girls who not simply released, but were part of a swop, in which four Boko Haram prisoners were released back to the terrorist group. Nigeria’s information minister, Lia Mohammed, however, firmly denies this to be the case:
“Please note that this is not a swap. It is a release, the product of painstaking negotiations and trust on both sides…As soon as the necessary confidence was built on both sides, the parties agreed on the date and the location of the release of the 21 girls.”
Mohammed also said that the government will continue pursuing the release of the remaining girls.
“We see this as a credible first step in the eventual release of all the Chibok girls in captivity. It is also a major step in confidence-building between us as government and the Boko Haram leadership on the issues of the Chibok girls,” said Mohammed.
