Borno should continue with updates on abducted girls -DHQ

The Defence Headquarters has said henceforth, all enquiries on the abducted students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, be directed to the Borno State Government.

The Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen Chris Olukolade, enjoined the Commissioner for Education in Borno State, who had been speaking on the incident to continue to give updates on the abduction, in a statement on Thursday.

Olukolade, who promised that the military would continue with the efforts to recover the abducted girls, stressed that the Borno State Government was the appropriate body to continue with the regular briefings on the abduction.

He said it was in line with standard global practice for Borno State, in whose facility the abduction took place, to ensure the necessary flow of information on the nagging incident.

Olukolade said security operatives in Borno would interact with state government officials to give updates on the abducted schoolgirls to the public.

He said, “While the military efforts at rescuing the girls is continuing, the government of Borno State whose Commissioner for Education has been giving regular updates on the incident at the initial stage, is enjoined to continue in order to satisfy the necessity for information flow. 

 

“The Borno State Government, in whose facility the incident occurred, is appropriately placed to continue with regular briefing as the State Commissioner for Education has been doing. This is in line with best practices in other climes more so as all agencies of every tier of government are expected to continue functioning in the state. 

 

“Accordingly, security agencies on ground in Borno State will continue to interact and support the state government officials in their efforts to inform the public on the Chibok incident and progress in the search without any prejudice.”

 

He said the military would ensure regular flow of information in all its internal security operations in the country.

  

Olukolade said while the security agencies had received a lot of information in the bid to retrieve the abducted girls, most of the information were given deliberately to cripple the military operation against the insurgency in the North East.

 

He said some of the information had been publicised to inflict more pain on the country in accordance with the expectation of the terrorists.

 

The statement read, “A lot of information have been received in the efforts at securing the freedom of the girls.  The Armed Forces assure all Nigerians that they will continue to appraise every information received during this operation accordingly. 

“Unfortunately however, most of the information, some of which have been mischievously publicised for sensational reasons, have always turned out to be spurious and of no operational use. 

 

“Disturbingly, some of them have been mischievously sensationalised and publicised with a view to heightening tension and inflicting more pain on the nation as envisaged by the terrorists. Nevertheless, the forces will remain disposed to receiving, analysing and applying all relevant information on this issue.”