While
speaking at the Air Force Base in Yola in a briefing, the Minister of
Information reassured that the negotiations for their release of missing
Chibok girls were on-going.
Buhari in military attire
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on
Tuesday, reassured that the negotiations for the release of other Chibok
girls in captivity were on-going.
The minister disclosed this at the Air Force Base in Yola in a
briefing to conclude a day and night rounds of search sortie of the
missing girls to Sambisa.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Mohammed, the Minister of
Defence, Brig-Gen. Mansur Dan-Alli (rtd); the convener of the Bring Back
Our Girls group, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili; as well as selected local
and foreign journalists participated in the search mission.
Mohammed said the success recorded by the military in the “theatre
of war” was helping the negotiation because of the carrot-and-stick
approach of government to ending the insurgency.
He recalled that a meeting was recently held which was a near
success and added that the government would persist in ensuring the safe
return of all the missing girls and others in captivity.
“The negotiations are still on, but unfortunately, unlike the
search operations, we cannot take you along to the negotiation table.
“I want to assure you that these negotiations are going on, but
they are very complicated and delicate and shift from time to time,’’ he said.
The minister commended the military for the victories recorded in
various operations at decimating the insurgents, particularly in Sambisa
forest.
He noted that the capture of Camp Zairo in Sambisa, which is the
headquarters and stronghold of the insurgents, was very crucial to
defeating the terrorists.
The minister stressed that the proportion of the camp to the size
of the forest notwithstanding, ”the capture is a big victory for the
military
“Camp Zairo might occupy probably one kilometre out of 60,000
kilometres expanse of Sambisa, but it is so crucial to us in this war.
“It is like imagining that there is a war and the Villa is captured. That is the essence of Camp Zairo.
“It is not the extent of physical expanse, but that we struck
at the very heart of insurgency and it does not mean the end of the
campaign in Sambisa forest,’’ he said.
Mohammed commended the Air Force for their professionalism and for deployment of modern technology in their operations.
He also commended the Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Sadique Abubakar, for initiating the search mission.
He added that it served its objective of participating and better
understanding of the efforts of the military in fighting insurgency.
Speaking on casualty figure of his men, AVM Abubakar said they were
very lucky in terms of suffering casualties on their air operations.
“First and foremost, the enemy does not have air assets and we
take training very seriously. We do everything possible to ensure
capacity development of our pilots and we make judicious use of the
personnel that are on ground,’’ he said.
He thanked the minister, the BBOG delegation, the journalists and others that participated in the exercise.
-NAN
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