‘Lie. Soldiers DID NOT DETAIN Chibok parents’

Sixty-five parents of abducted Chibok girls were not detained by the Nigerian military as claimed by the BringBackOurGirls group, a source very close to commanding officer in the town has told TheCable.

Speaking first on Tuesday night and later on Wednesday morning, Hassan Chibok, who said he did not mind being named because he was “not afraid of anybody”, maintained that the military only told the parents to obtain a pass from the Chibok local government chairman, so that soldiers could escort them out of the dangerous zone they were planning to travel through.

“You know the situation in Chibok. For weeks now, we have been experiencing attacks around Chibok general area. And there is a report, intelligence report that Boko Haram members were planning to lay ambush for the parents when travelling to Abuja,” he said.

“So the military here told them that if they were planning to go to anywhere, they should get authority letter from the local government council. That way, the army is aware of their movement, and will then give them adequate security to move them out of the danger zone.

“So when they made the plan of moving, the army here asked them if the local government was aware of their movement? They said no. So they were told to get all the necessary arrangement before they could leave.

“There have been series of ambushing on the roads, so moving in convoy is very dangerous here. In fact, moving in convoy here is only permitted with military escort so that there would be protection of life and property.

“Now, disregarding the information of the military, they now went through another part, the road that is blocked and is not for people to follow again. We told them to go back to your local government and bring authority so that they could be escorted out of their area. That’s really what happened. Nobody detained anybody; nobody harassed anybody; they only asked them to go back to chibok.”

Asked if the parents indeed went back to Chibok or they stayed back with the military, he said: “Yes, they are in Chibok. And, in case you don’t know, all these Chibok parents, there are a lot of things happening that you people who are not here in Borno do not know.

“There are fake parents, people claiming that their kids were among those kidnapped, which is not true. These people are only here because of their personal gains.”

Asked how long it would take the parents to get the local government clearance, he said: “Before they made the move, it is just for them to just call the chairman and tell the chairman, ‘this is our plan, we are trying to move to Abuja or Maiduguri; we need a letter from you so that the military here will escort us out of the danger area’.

“You know, now we are looking for the girls and if anything happens to the parents, it is another problem; and this is what the military is trying to avoid.”

He expressed anger with those trying to discredit efforts of the military to properly secure the area, and urged the media to work more with grassroots sources rather than on people in Abuja who themselves do not have the correct information.

He confirmed, on Wednesday, that the parents were already on their way to Abuja, and were escorted past Maiduguri and past Yola, after securing the said clearance.