The Federal Government is to send some members of the Chibok community to neighbouring Cameroon, to verify whether a female suicide bomber arrested on Friday, is one of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.
This information is contained in a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday by Mallam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari.
The statement said that already the Minister of Women Affairs, Hajiya Aisha Alhassan and Nigerian high commissioner in Cameroon had swung into action and were receiving a lot of cooperation from the Cameroonian authorities.
“It has been confirmed that one of two girls is claiming to be among the girls stolen from Chibok on April 14, last year, although doubts have creeped into the claim following new information from Cameroon that the two girls are aged about 10 years,’’ it stated.
According to the statement, one of the two is also believed to be heavily drugged and therefore not in full control of her senses.
It said that the Nigeria’s High Commissioner to Cameroon, Amb. Hadiza Mustapha, had confirmed that the arrested girls might be brought to the Cameroonian capital, Younde, by Monday, at which point the High Commission would seek permission to meet with them.
The statement said that the Murtala Mohammed Foundation had offered to cooperate with federal government in sponsoring two parents from Chibok, who had been selected to embark on the trip to Cameroon.
“The two are Yakubu Nkeki, Chairman of the Parents of the Abducted Girls from Chibok association, and Yana Galang, the group’s women leader.
“The Nigerian High Commission will receive the two and will facilitate their access to the two girls once permission to meet and verify their identity is obtained from the Cameroonian authorities,’’ the statement added.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that about 250 Chibok schoolgirls were reported to have been abducted by members of the Boko Haram terror sect at the Chibok Government Secondary School in Borno about two years ago.
About 51 of the affected schoolgirls were also reported to have escaped from their abductors, who were transporting them to unknown destinations, on the fateful day of their abduction.