It described Jonathan’s blame game as an unnecessary distraction from ongoing effort to secure the release of the girls who remained in captivity long after they were abducted.
A British newspaper had during the weekend reported that the British armed forces offered to help the country to rescue the girls but such offers were rebuffed by Jonathan.
However, Jonathan while reacting to the report in a statement by his media aide, Ikechukwu Eze, said: “Some people who have obviously been playing politics with the issue of the Chibok girls will stop at nothing to further their interest.”
In a statement issued yesterday in Abuja, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said while Jonathan reserves the right to defend his administration, he should not engage in finger-pointing because if anyone ever played politics with the issue of Chibok girls, it was the Jonathan’s administration under whose watch the girls were abducted.
He said: “After the girls were kidnapped and the Jonathan administration did nothing for 15 days or made any determined effort to rescue them, the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) told the nation that the Boko Haram crisis was allowed to escalate by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government so they can use it as a political tool ahead of the 2015 elections.”
The minister added that the APC had in a statement on September 8, 2014 said that PDP’s political manipulation of the Boko Haram had to be understood as part of its poker-like calculus for clinging to power ahead of the 2015 elections.
“The Boko Haram crisis was used by the PDP to rationalize the government’s abdication of its constitutional responsibilities, including visits and assistance to areas affected, as well as effective response to abductions. For instance, the then government was silent over the kidnap of the Chibok girls for over 15 days,” he added.
“Two-and-a-half years after that statement, we have been vindicated by the report that claimed that Jonathan rebuffed an attempt by the British government to help rescue the girls. We hope Jonathan will now refrain from stoking further controversy over the lingering abduction issue and allow the government of the day to focus on its ongoing negotiations to release the Chibok girls,” Mohammed said.
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