Tribune / Nigeria: The Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Lawan Daura; and the Inspector-General of Police(IGP) Solomon Arase, on Wednesday, said they had no concrete clue on the whereabouts of the abducted Chibok girls.
The security chiefs, who briefed senators at a closed session on Wednesday, said there was no clue yet on the actual whereabouts of the abducted girls who had already spent two years in the custody of the dreaded Boko Haram.
Though the service chiefs were conspicuously absent, sources at the closed session told the Nigerian Tribune that the senators were downcast to hear that the nation’s intelligence network had no clue on the whereabouts of the girls.
It was gathered that the DG, DSS, Daura, who briefed the senators on the abducted girls, said the government did not really know where the girls were being kept.
He was also quoted as telling the senators that a recent attempt to rescue 20 of the girls could not pull through, following the failure of the militants to keep their words.
Sources in the Senate also quoted the security chief as saying the recent attempt at rescuing the girls took off following interactions between the government and supposed representatives of the militants.
The sources said the Boko Haram militants had demanded that five of their senior hands already arrested by the government should be freed in exchange for 20 of the girls.
According to sources, the security operatives revealed that the supposed negotiators asked the security men to bring the 20 girls to a location in Maiduguri and that 10 of them will be exchanged for five Boko Haram militants in government custody.
It was also gathered that the government agents were to drop the five militants in a location where they would pick 10 of the girls, while they would locate the second batch of 10 in another location.
But the operatives were said to have told the Senate that though the five arrested militants were taken to Maiduguri as planned, the deal failed to sail through, as the Boko Haram failed to produce the girls.
The Senate had, on the second anniversary of the abduction of the Chibok girls, summoned the service and security chiefs to brief it on efforts aimed at rescuing the girls.
Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who announced the departure of the security chiefs at the end of the briefing, said the senate agreed that the government should intensify efforts in their rescue.
He told his colleagues when the session was opened that “the senate was briefed by the director-general, state security service and the inspector-general of police on the abduction of the Chibok school girls and efforts to rescue them between the last two years.
Meanwhile, Defence Headquarters, on Wednesday, said it had an intelligence report that, having been effectively decimated and degraded, the remnant or surviving splinter groups of Boko Haram are currently desperate to recruit more people into their ranks and files as a result of sustained onslaught against them by the troops.
It, therefore, advised the general public, especially those in the North-East, to constantly be wary and conscious of the various tactics of the desperate Boko Haram.
In a statement, Brigadier-General Rabe Abubakar, who is the acting Director, Defence Information, said it came to the knowledge of the Defence Headquarters that Boko Haram terrorists had now devised another means of recruiting unsuspecting youths into their fold.
According to him, in the clandestine dispensation, Boko Haram terrorists had resorted to providing loans to young entrepreneurs and artisans in the North-East as a way of inducing them for recruitment.
He said the major targets of the unholy business engagement were youths in the North-East, especially the butchers, traders, tailors, beauticians and other vocational entrepreneurs who could be easily enticed with such loan without paying attention to sundry inherent dangers associated with the acceptance of such goodies from this satanic group or unfamiliar source.
“After such loans, the beneficiaries are given the option of either joining the group or risk being killed if they fail to pay the loan as at when due, whereas the payment has been surreptitiously programmed to fail by the benefactor, the Boko Haram,” he said.
In another development, The United States (U.S.) Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Samantha Power, has announced nearly $40 million in new humanitarian assistance to support people whose lives have been affected by Boko Haram insurgency.
Power said she made the announcement in Cameroon, during a trip to the Lake Chad Basin region to highlight the growing threat of Boko Haram.
The U.S. State Department made this known in a statement that was issued on Wednesday.
There are nearly 170,000 Nigerian refugees, who have fled to Cameroon, Chad and Niger countries whose citizens have also suffered from Boko Haram attacks and consequent displacement.
Also, the North-East Coalition Against Terrorism (NECAT) is set to hold a solidarity march in support of the Nigerian Army, following the success recorded so far in fighting and dislodging insurgency in the zone.
In a letter sent to President Muhammadu Buhari and copied the Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, the coalition said the action became imperative with a view to honouring the gallant troops and Federal Government’s efforts at eradicating insurgency in Nigeria as a whole and North-East in particular.
