Senator says Jonathan was misinformed on ‘Chibok Girls’

Chairman Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, on Friday said President Goodluck Jonathan did not react to the issue of the 276 female students abducted by Boko Haram insurgents early enough because accurate information was not made available on time.

He said an information centre had to be set up to ascertain facts from speculations because there was a deliberate plot to mislead the government.

“When the Chibok tragedy happened, we visited the President and suggested that an information center should be established because information was pouring in from different sources on a daily basis. Even people who were supposed to be reliable were misleading. The President needed to be clear on the actual situation before addressing Nigerians,” he told Channels TV.

He criticised the Borno State government for disclosing the information at its disposal to the media and said the president has the full support of the Senate for being careful with comments about the incident.

“The president is not expected to be coming out every day to give briefing. We don’t like the fact that information that is passed across leaks to the media because immediately it gets to the media, it becomes sensationalized. After giving information, the Governor of Borno State goes ahead to tell the world and the enemy uses that to fortify themselves,” he said.

Abaribe said the country was at war but expressed optimism that government would bring the situation under control.

The senator explained that wide consultations were being made to know whether or not to approve the request of the president to extend the state of emergency in the three north-east states that are apparently the worse hit of the activities of the Boko Haram sect.

He pleaded with Nigerians not to see the Nigerian soldiers as incompetent, adding that they have been commended for good operation all over the world but have not been able to achieve meaningful because of numerous challenges, including “fighting insurgency embedded within the population”.

Abaribe said the Senate is assisting the military to overcome constraints with the hope of positively turning things around in the country.

Jonathan has been widely criticised for his slow response to the kidnapping of the girls.