NEWS:Jonathan Reacts To Report He Rejected British Offer To Rescue Chibok Girls

Former president Goodluck Jonathan has
denied reports that his administration
refused help from the British government to
rescue the abducted Chibok girls .

A foreign newspaper had reported that the Jonathan-led administration rejected
the offer of British armed forces to help in rescuing the girls, who were abducted in April 2014.

In a statement signed by Ikechukwu Eze,
media adviser to Jonathan, the former
president said the ‘lies’ in the report
were self evident.
“Our attention has been drawn to a
report that has been trending,
without proper attribution, to the
effect that the last administration
rebuffed British offer to rescue the
kidnapped Chibok school girls,” he
said.
“We wish to promptly point out that
nothing can be further from the truth,
as Nigerians are conversant with the
effort made by the Jonathan
administration towards rescuing the
Chibok girls, especially in relation to
collaborating with the international
community.
“We can confidently say that the lies
in this report are self evident. This is
because the international press as
well as the Nigeria media actively
covered the multinational efforts and
collaboration which involved some of
the major powers deploying their
crack intelligence officers to work
with our own security operatives, and
those of our neighbours.”
The statement further said there were
meetings between local operatives and
those from other countries including
Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
“In fact, the Jonathan administration
was so genuinely supportive that the
foreign powers involved were granted
permission to overfly our airspace, while
conducting the search and rescue
missions,” he said.
“We would wish to recall that this
collaboration was made possible
following letters personally written by
former president Jonathan to Barack
Obama, former president of the United
States; Francois Hollande, president of
France, David Cameron, former
British prime minister, as well as
personal contacts made to the
Governments of Israel and China,
seeking their assistance in the search
for the abducted Chibok girls.”
Jonathan attributed the “concocted
story” to people “who have been playing
politics with the issue of the abducted
girls”.
“We are not surprised that this kind
of concocted story is coming out at
this point in time, as it appears that
some people who have obviously been
playing politics with the issue of the
Chibok girls will stop at nothing to
further their interest,” he said.