Jonathan took 19 days to call governor after Chibok girls kidnap

The Governor of Borno State Kashim Shettima said that former president Goodluck Jonathan did not call him about the missing Chibok schoolgirls until 19 days after they were kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents in 2014.

Shettima was speaking during a visit to his office in Maiduguri by former president Olusegun Obasanjo. The governor said: “In our own case, Your Excellency, after the Chibok abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in April, 2014, it took 19 days for me to receive a call from the Presidency. I brought this mainly to show the difference, because we will only appreciate scenarios when we make comparisons.”

The day after the girls were kidnapped Jonathan was seen dancing at a rally in Kano. Jibrin Ibrahim, an activist with the #BringBackOurGirls group said two months after the abduction: “Everybody in this country realises that the government has not been doing as much as it should. It took three weeks before security operatives visited the village. It was an absent state. A state that does not carry out its responsibilities is of much concern to us.”

Many have claimed that the failure to rescue the girls was partly due to the authorities not reacting swiftly following the incident. Jonathan never recovered from his apparent insensitivity and ineffectual reaction to the kidnapping. It was a huge factor in his loss to Muhammadu Buhari in the presidential (s)election almost a year after the girls were abducted.

The girls are yet to be rescued, despite Buhari’s pledges during the campaign to bring them back.