Former British prime minister, David Cameron, has alleged
that ex-President Goodluck Jonathan did not give enough support to Britain
during the abduction of 274 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno state.
The abduction, which took place on April 14 2014, had
sparked a global outrage following which the international community offered to
assist Nigeria.
In For The Record, his memoir, Cameron, who was in office
at the time of the incident, said British troops traced the location of some of
the victims and offered to help but Jonathan refused.
“Iraq wasn’t the only place we would need our military to
counter this extremist menace. Boko Haram in Nigeria was linked to al-Qaeda,
and believed Western education and lifestyles were a sin (the meaning behind
its name). It too wanted to institute a caliphate, and like ISIS it would use
whatever barbaric means it thought necessary,” Cameron wrote in the book.
“In early 2014 a group of its fighters centered the
government secondary school in the village of Chibok, seizing 276 teenage
girls. They were taken to camps deep in the forest. The Christians among them
were forced to convert to Islam. Many were sold as slaves, entering the same
endless violent nightmare the Yazidi women suffered.
“As ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign spread across the
world, we embedded a team of military and intelligence experts in Nigeria, and
sent spy planes and Tornadoes with thermal imaging to search for the missing
girls. And, amazingly, from the skies above a forest three times the size of
Wales, we managed to locate some of them.
But Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, seemed to be
asleep at the wheel. When he eventually made a statement, it was to accuse the
campaigners of politicising the tragedy. And absolutely crucially, when we
offered to help rescue the girls we had located, he refused.”
TheCable sent messages to Ikechukwu Eze, spokesman of
Jonathan, seeking his reaction to Cameron’s claim but he had not responded as
of the time this report was filed.
But in an interview with BBC last year, Jonathan had
said Boko Haram should be blamed for the abduction of the girls because as a
president he could not go to the battlefield to fight insurgents.
“I cannot take responsibility for the abduction, I don’t
control Boko Haram. They are criminals. But as a President, of course you know
it is not the President that goes to the field. You have security and
intelligence officers that do the work,” he had said.
“Let me admit that yes, maybe they did their best but
their best was not good enough for us to recover the girls. That I cannot say I
am right or I am wrong. That does not mean I am trying to remove myself from
any blame.
I may not be blamed for the action but I could be blamed
that my security intelligence system was not strong enough to rescue the girls.
If I as a politician could tell the whole world that my political ambition for
any office is not worth the blood of a single Nigerian, how would I be happy
that girls have been kidnapped? I am not that kind of character.”
In his book, Cameron also said the Nigerian army was
unable to participate in operations the US and UK forces organised for the
rescue of Chibok schoolgirls because of “politically appointed generals”.
The ex-British prime minister wrote on how the Archbishop
of Canterbury was contacted to assist during the intervention in Nigeria.
“We had to play the long game focusing on a much bigger
training effort for the Nigerian military and intelligence forces and trying to
promote more energetic leaders from the younger generation. The Archbishop of
Canterbury, as an expert on Nigeria, could be particularly useful on this and I
invited him to join our NSC discussion,” he wrote.
“Some of the girls have managed to escape over the
following four years, and others have been released, but over a hundred are
still missing. Once again. the combination of Islamist extremism and bad
governance proved fatal.
“How did I feel about all this at the end of 2014? The
answer is, depressed. ISIS now occupied an area larger than Britain. A similar
brand of terrorism was being wrought by Boko Harem in west Africa), another
ISIS affiliate in north Africa, and by al-Shabab (‘the youth) in east Africa,
while related groups were springing up in the Philippines, Bangladesh,
Afghanistan and the Caucasus. There seemed to be no stopping an evil ideology
that seduced minds from the badlands of Syt’tato bedrooms in Birmingham. When I
spoke about the challenge publicly I tried to remain measured and resolute. But
privately did asked myself, would we ever be able to defeat this thing?”
A total of 112 Chibok schoolgirls have remained
unaccounted for. The government of President Muhammadu Buhari secured the
release of more than 100 while 57 managed to escape.
Reacting
to the former Prime Minister's claim, Jonathan in a statement released by his
media aide, Ikechukwu Eze, said Cameron was a liar.
“I read the comments by former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, in his
new book, For the Record, in which he accused me and the Nigerian Government,
which I headed, of corruption and rejecting the help of the British Government
in rescuing the Chibok Girls, who were kidnapped on April 14, 2014,” he said.
“It is quite sad that Mr. Cameron would say this because nothing of such ever
occurred. As President of Nigeria, I not only wrote letters to then Prime
Minister David Cameron, I also wrote to the then US President, Barrack Obama,
and the then French President, François Hollande, as well as the Israeli Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appealing to them for help in rescuing the Chibok
Girls.
“How could I write to appeal for help and then reject the very thing I appealed
for?
“Also, history contradicts Mr. Cameron. On March 8, 2012, when the same Boko
Haram linked terrorists abducted a British expatriate named Chris McManus,
along with an Italian hostage Franco Lamolinara, in Sokoto, I, as Nigerian
President, personally authorised a rescue effort by members of the British
military Special Boat Service supported by officers and men of the Nigerian
Army, to free the abducted men.
“So, having set a precedent like that, why would I reject British help in
rescuing the Chibok Girls, if it was offered? I also authorised the secret
deployment of troops from the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel as a
result of the Chibok incident, so how Mr. Cameron could say this with a
straight face beats me.
“I would urge the public to take Mr. Cameron’s accusations with a grain of
salt. I will not be the first person to accuse him of lying on account of this
book, and with the reactions in the UK so far, I definitely will not be the
last.
Moreover, on March 8, 2017, the British Government of former Prime Minister,
Theresa May, in a widely circulated press statement, debunked this allegation
and said there was no truth in it after Mr. Cameron had made similar statements
to the Observer of the UK.
In his book, Mr. Cameron failed to mention that I wrote him requesting his help
on Chibok. Why did he suppress that information? I remind him that copies of
that letter exist at the State Houses in Nigeria and London. He never called me
on the phone to offer any help. On the contrary, I am the one that reached out
to him.” Jonathan said in his statement
