President Muhammadu Buhari has approved an investigation into the abduction of 219 girls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State in April 2014.
President Buhari made the disclosure while speaking at a meeting attended by some parents of the abducted girls, representatives of the Chibok community and members of the Bring Back Our Girls movement at the State House, Abuja on Thursday.
The yet to be constituted investigative panel, according to the Senior Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, will seek to, among other things, unravel the remote and immediate circumstances leading to the kidnap of the girls by Boko Haram terrorists as well as the other events, actions and inactions that followed the incident.
Buhari, according to Shehu, assured the visitors that his government remains fully committed to his pledge to do all within its powers to save the girls.
“I assure you that I go to bed and wake up every day with the Chibok girls on my mind”, Buhari said, assuring that he will continue to do everything possible to rescue the missing school girls and re-unite them with their families.
On the efforts of his government so far in rescuing the missing girls and ending the bloody insurgency, Buhari said:”We re-organized the military, removed all the service chiefs and ordered the succeeding service chiefs to deal decisively with the Boko Haram insurgency.”
“In spite of the terrible economic condition, we tried to get some resources to give to the military to reorganize and equip, retrain, deploy more troops and move more forcefully against Boko Haram.”
According to the president, tremendous progress has already been recorded since his anti-terror and counter-insurgency campaign took off.
“When we came in Boko Haram was in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno. Boko Haram has now been reduced to areas around Lake Chad,” Buhari said, while reiterating his commitment towards ending the terror campaign in the northeast.
“The service chiefs and heads of our security agencies will tell you that despite the dire financial straits that we found the country in, I continue to do my best to support their efforts in that regard.”
“This is a Nigeria where we were exporting average of two million barrels daily at over 140 USD per barrel. Now it is down to about 27 to 30 USD”
He went further: “You have been reading in the press how they took public funds, our funds, your funds and shared it, instead of buying weapons. That was the kind of leadership I succeeded. That was the kind of economy I inherited.”
“God knows I have done my best and I will continue to do my best,” he concluded.
By Olisemeka Obeche