Boko Haram: Group links northern elders with schoolgirls’ kidnap

A group on Monday alleged that elders in the North were behind the kidnap of the female pupils of the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.

The group, United Alliance, in a statement by its northern co-ordinator, Bashir Ado, said the abduction of the school girls was part of the agenda of the northern elders to embarrass President Goodluck Jonathan.

 Ado, who spoke ahead of Wednesday’s planned protest by women in the Federal Capital Territory to press for the release of the kidnapped Chibok  girls, said the protesters should not direct their grievance at the President, saying Jonathan had nothing to do with the disappearance of the girls.

He said, “The disappearance of the girls is part of the Northern elders agenda to embarrass and distract the Goodluck Jonathan government.

“They deliberately took the girls away to create an impression of insecurity and paint the picture that nobody is safe in the country, whereas they are the architect of these self- inflicting wounds aimed at distracting the government”

 The group also said the authorities of the kidnapped girls’ school should be questioned for defying an earlier order of the Federal Government that schools in the area should shut down.

It said the school authorities “deliberately ignored the government’s directive.”

It said, “There was an initial instruction to school authorities in the area to evacuate students from schools because of insecurity and the parents were aware of this. Why then would the authorities of the school refuse to yield to such sensitive instruction if there was no pre-conceived agenda to lash on the perceived state of insecurity to organise the kidnap of their own children and put the blame at the doorstep of the Federal Government.

“The co-ordinated media interviews the mothers of the alleged missing girls have been granting showed that a script is being acted.

 “It is high time our leaders in the North come to terms with the reality that this self inflicting havoc will continue to deplete the value of Northerners and eventually rub us of our place in the Nigerian nation.”