Schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria

[Gen]

"I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah," a man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in a video first obtained by Agence France-Presse.


"There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women," he continued, according to a CNN translation from the local Hausa language.


Boko Haram is a terrorist group receiving training from al Qaeda affiliates, according to U.S. officials. Its name means "Western education is sin." In his nearly hourlong, rambling video, Shekau repeatedly called for Western education to end.









spineless coward, a bet if yuh tek weh him gun and put him inna one ring with one of the girls, she bax him dung.

[kia027]

I dont think Allah said they should be sold and if Allah really did, then he must understand the Allah is the devil.

this is one really screwed up person

[blugiant]

The one who got away: Nigerian schoolgirl reveals how she escaped Islamist militants who kidnapped 300 to be sex slaves

A further eight girls also taken from village by gunmen overnight
Happened near a Boko Haram stronghold in north east Nigeria
Comes as video was released of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau
In it he threatens to sell the girls on the market
Around 270 girls were kidnapped from a school in Chibok last month


LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - The girls in the school dorm heard the sound of gunshots from a nearby town. So when armed men in uniforms burst in and promised to rescue them, at first they were relieved.

'Don't worry, we're soldiers,' one 16-year-old girl recalls them saying. 'Nothing is going to happen to you.'

The gunmen commanded the hundreds of students at the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School to gather outside. The men went into a storeroom and removed all the food. Then they set fire to the room.



'They ... started shouting, "Allahu Akhbar," (God is great),' the 16-year-old student said. "And we knew."

What they knew was chilling: The men were not government soldiers at all. They were members of the ruthless Islamic extremist group called Boko Haram. They kidnapped the entire group of girls and drove them away in pickup trucks into the dense forest.

Three weeks later, 276 girls are still missing. At least two have died of snakebite, and about 20 others are ill, according to an intermediary who is in touch with their captors.

Their plight - and the failure of the Nigerian military to find them - has drawn international attention to an escalating Islamic extremist insurrection that has killed more than 1,500 so far this year. Boko Haram, the name means 'Western education is sinful,' has claimed responsibility for the mass kidnapping and threatened to sell the girls. The claim was made in a video seen Monday.

Amid growing outrage at the girls' prolonged captivity, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan Tuesday announced he has accepted a U.S. offer to help in the search, including security personnel and unidentified assets.

The British governments has also expressed concern over the fate of the missing students, and protests have erupted in major Nigerian cities and New York.

The 16-year-old was among about 50 students who escaped on that fateful day, and she spoke for the first time in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

The AP also interviewed about 30 others, including Nigerian government and Borno state officials, school officials, six relatives of the missing girls, civil society leaders and politicians in northeast Nigeria and soldiers in the war zone. Many spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing that giving their names would also reveal the girls' identities and subject them to possible stigmatization in this conservative society.

The Chibok girls school is in the remote and sparsely populated northeast region of Nigeria, a country of 170 million with a growing chasm between a north dominated by Muslims and a south by Christians. Like all schools in Borno state, Chibok, an elite academy of both Muslim and Christian girls, had been closed because of increasingly deadly attacks by Boko Haram. But it had reopened to allow final-year students to take exams.

At about 11 p.m. on April 14, a local government official, Bana Lawal, received a warning via cell phone. He was told that about 200 heavily armed militants in 20 pickup trucks and more than 30 motorcycles were headed toward his town.

Lawal alerted the 15 soldiers guarding Chibok, he said. Then he roused sleeping residents and told them to flee into the bush and the nearby hills. The soldiers sent an SOS to the nearest barracks, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) away, an hour's drive on a dirt road.

No help arrived.

When the militants showed up two hours after the warning, the soldiers fought valiantly, Lawal said. Although they were outnumbered and outgunned, they held off the insurgents for an hour and a half, desperately waiting for reinforcements. One was killed. They ran out of ammunition and fled for their lives.

As dawn approached, the extremists headed for the boarding school.

There were too many gunmen to count, said the girl who escaped. So, even after the students realized the men were Islamic extremists, they obediently sat in the dirt. The men set the school ablaze and herded the girl's group onto the backs of three pickup trucks.

The trucks drove through three villages, but then the car of fighters following them broke down. That's when the girl and her friend jumped out.

Others argued, the 16-year-old remembered. But one student said, 'We should go! Me, I am coming down. They can shoot me if they want but I don't know what they are going to do with me otherwise.'

As they jumped, the car behind started up. Its lights came on. The girls did not know if the fighters could see them, so they ran into the bush and hid.

'We ran and ran, so fast,' said the girl, who has always prided herself on running faster than her six brothers. "That is how I saved myself. I had no time to be scared, I was just running.'

A few other girls clung to low-hanging branches and waited until the vehicles had passed. Then they met up in the bush and made their way back to the road. A man on a bicycle came across them and accompanied them back home.

There, they were met with tears of joy.

'I'm the only girl in my family, so I hold a special place and everyone was so happy,' the girl said. 'But that didn't last long.'

The day after, the Defense Ministry put out a statement quoting the school principal, saying soldiers had rescued all but eight of the girls. When the principal denied it, the ministry retracted its statement.

With confidence in the military eroded, the residents of Chibok pooled their money, bought fuel for motorcycles and headed into the dangerous Sambisa Forest. The forest sprawls over more than 23,000 square miles (59,570 sq. kilometers), nearly eight times the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States, and is known to shelter extremist hideouts.

Mutah Buba joined the search party hoping to find his two sisters and two nieces. They got directions from villagers along the way who said they had seen the abductors with the girls on a forest path. Finally, an old man herding cattle at a fork in the road warned them that they were close to the camp, but that they and their daughters could be killed if they confronted the militants.

The searchers returned to Chibok and appealed to the few soldiers there to accompany them into the forest. They refused, point blank, Buba said. Parents in Chibok ask why they came within a couple of miles of their daughters, yet the military did not.

'What was strange was that none of the people we spoke to had seen a soldier man in the area, yet the military were saying they were in hot pursuit,' said Buba, a 42-year-old drawn home to Chibok by the tragedy from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the northwest.

The military says it is diligently searching for the girls, with extensive aerial surveillance.

'Every information relayed to security agencies has so far been investigated, including the search of all places suspected as a possible hide-away of the kidnapped girls,' Information Minister Labaran Maku said Friday.

Many soldiers have told the AP they are demoralized, because Boko Haram is more heavily armed and better equipped, while they get little more than a meal a day.

Some of the kidnapped girls have been forced into 'marriage' with their Boko Haram abductors, sold for a nominal bride price of $12, according to parents who talked with villagers. Others have been taken across borders to Cameroon and Chad, they said. Their accounts could not be verified, but forced child marriage is common in northern Nigeria, where it is allowed under Islamic law but not the country's Western-style constitution.

In the meantime, the parents are frantic. Through sobs and jagged gasps for air, the mother of a missing 15-year-old said she had lost confidence in the authorities.

'I am so very sad because the government of Nigeria did not take care of our children and does not now care about our children,' said the mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her daughter. 'All we have left is to pray to God to help them and help us.'

The mother of six wondered what would happen to her daughter's lofty ambition to become a doctor. She said the girl spent her time caring for the family, and would cook whatever her mother wanted to eat.

'She is my first-born, the best,' said the mother, who broke into a scream followed by wails of sorrow. 'What am I to do as a mother?'

The only way to get the girls back is through negotiation, according to an Islamic scholar who has mediated the release of previous hostages. The scholar, who remained anonymous because his position receiving messages from Boko Haram is sensitive, said the militants are willing to free the girls for a ransom, but have not specified how much.

The 16-year-old who escaped keeps thinking of her friends, and wondering why she was able to get away while they are still captive. She is at times afraid and at times angry.

'I am really lucky and I can thank God for that,' she said. "But God must help all of them ... Their parents are worrying. Every day, everyone is crying.'

It comes as another eight girls aged 12 to 15 were kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram gunmen from a village near one of their strongholds in northeast Nigeria overnight, police and residents said today.

'They were many, and all of them carried guns. They came in two vehicles painted in army colour. They started shooting in our village,' said Lazarus Musa, a resident of Warabe, where the attack happened.
A police source, who could not be named, said the girls were taken away on trucks, along with looted livestock and food.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2621778/We-ran-ran-fast-That-I-saved-One-300-schoolgirls-kidnapped-Nigeria-reveals-escaped-Islamist-militants-seize-eight-girls.html

[blugiant]

I dont think Allah said they should be sold and if Allah really did, then he must understand the Allah is the devil.

this is one really screwed up person

islam iss a religion aff enslavers aff afrikkans ann da nigerian need fe hunt dem kiddnappers dunn ann teach dem ann dunn dem

[jah_yout]

this is starting to smell fishy....
now the nigerian president wants america to help?
hunting al-qaeda all over again?

maybe boko haram working for the c.i.a.
the american president name barack obama & the nigerian president name goodluck jonathan...
ironic

[blugiant]

this is starting to smell fishy....
now the nigerian president wants america to help?
hunting al-qaeda all over again?

maybe boko haram working for the c.i.a.
the american president name barack obama & the nigerian president name goodluck jonathan...
ironic

dat y mii neva bunn fiyah pon da group. mii onlee bunn fiyah pon dem duttee kidnappers ann rapists. da qwestian yuh askinn iss rite woo financinn dem

lissen to jah bouks cancious chune angola

message inn da music

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How Not to “Bring Back our Girls”


Margaret Kimberley




Hundreds of Nigerian girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram fighters, three weeks ago. The abductions got very little media coverage, so the wave of U.S. revulsion is only now surfacing. Americans urge their government to “do something,” but know next to nothing about the Nigerian political crisis, since there has not been “a single television news story about Boko Haram in 2013.”


“The last thing Nigeria needs is a foreign military presence to prop up its corrupt government.”

Bring back our girls. The message is a simple one that resonates with millions of people around the world. Those four words were first seen in a now famous twitter hashtag in the aftermath of the kidnapping of 280 teenagers from a school in Chibok, Nigeria on April 14, 2014. The Boko Haram group which is fighting that country’s government admits to holding the girls captive.

Only people who closely follow international news were aware of this situation until last week. It is right that so many people are concerned for the girls’ safety. Unfortunately, the effort to draw attention to this horror is of little use without a deeper understanding of Africa’s political situation.

Because western nations continue to interfere in Africa’s affairs and place compliant “strong men” in power, nearly every government on that continent is weak. Presidents and prime ministers exist only to enrich elites and ensure that valuable resources reach the western capitalist nations. It seems ludicrous that Nigerian president Goodluck Johnathan at first denied that the kidnap had taken place, and then vacillated between claiming that the girls had been recovered or that the number captured was smaller than reported. Hashtags and petitions are a poor substitute for a government whose infrastructure is dedicated to producing and delivering oil to the West but not doing very much for its own citizens.

“Relatives of suspected Boko Haram members were detained by the police in 2011 and 2012 and that the group swore revenge.”

It is little wonder that this story is so new to American ears. According to the Tyndall Report, which monitors daily broadcasts of the three major U.S. networks, there was not a single television news story about Boko Haram in 2013. This absence of information comes despite the fact that the group claimed responsibility for the deaths of more than 1,500 people in the past year. Not only is the Chibok case not the first kidnapping of girls, but boys fare even worse in these attacks. Boko Haram killed 29 male students at a boarding school in February 2014. Americans ask why these girls were taken and why they can’t be found without having any of the information which would answer those questions. The anger and sadness exist in a vacuum and are therefore useless in bringing about a resolution.

Because Americans are so poorly informed about the rest of the world, and so strangely enamored of their own government and its intentions, they automatically fall back to the worst solution of all, foreign military intervention. President Obama has said that he will assist the Nigerian military. That solution may please people who are understandably concerned about the fate of these young women, but that doesn’t make it very helpful.

The last thing Nigeria needs is a foreign military presence to prop up its corrupt government. Nigeria is a linchpin of AFRICOM, which puts African militaries under the direct command of the United States. AFRICOM is in place to protect the resource pipeline and to restrict efforts to keep any other nations from bringing resources that Africans actually need. AFRICOM’s presence certainly hasn’t helped the victims of Boko Haram thus far.

The late to the party news stories never mention that relatives of suspected Boko Haram members were detained by the police in 2011 and 2012 and that the group swore revenge. Boko Haram leader Abubakr Shekau said in one his many videos, "Since you are now holding our women, just wait and see what will happen to your own women... to your own wives according to sharia law." The kidnappings of the past two years are a direct result of the government’s mistreatment of its people and its failed efforts to fight Boko Haram.

“American allies like Yoweri Museveni in Uganda and Paul Kagame in Rwanda have kidnapped children and forced them to become soldiers.”

This simple tale is not so simple after all. The media constantly repeat that Boko Haram means “western education is forbidden.” Except that it more likely means that deception, such as that which came with western colonization and its education system, is forbidden. If this very basic fact about Boko Haram can’t be reported properly, then the media are of little help to the missing girls or to the people all over the world who care so much about them.

While Americans wring their hands over the abducted teens, they know nothing about the African strong men supported by their government who do the very same thing. American allies like Yoweri Museveni in Uganda and Paul Kagame in Rwanda have kidnapped children and forced them to become soldiers. Both are also responsible for the deaths of six million Congolese. Americans not only have to be better informed, but they must stop thinking that their government and its allies are good and beneficent when they are anything but.

Sometimes the answer to the question, “What can we do?” is “Nothing.” There is nothing that the average American citizen can do to get these girls released and those with the power to do something aren’t very interested in internecine warfare in Nigeria. Their machinations created this and so many other tragedies around the world.

It is difficult not to have a strong emotional reaction to such a terrible story but that is the precise moment to dig deeper and search for complexities. That is the least that can be done to help bring back our girls.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-how-not-%E2%80%9Cbring-back-our-girls%E2%80%9D

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Obama to Send US Military Officials to Nigeria to Help Rescue Kidnapped Girls


Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan accepted President Obama’s offer Tuesday to help in the rescue of over 200 schoolgirls who were kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram– just as reports emerged that the group had abducted eight more girls from another remote village.

The Obama administration reportedly already had a military presence in Nigeria, working with the French and Nigerians to use unarmed drones to gather intelligence. Now the U.S. will send additional military, intelligence and law enforcement advisers to the country to help find and rescue the girls who were abducted on April 14 from a rural high school in Nigeria’s Muslim-dominated northeast.

The case has drawn international coverage and prompted a global outcry, as well as protests in Nigeria and anguished calls for President Jonathan’s administration to find the girls and stop the brutal scourge of Boko Haram. Reacting to the anger, Nigerian police today offered a $300,000 reward for information leading to the rescue of the girls.
Nigerian authorities reported that suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped eight more girls from a village near one of the Islamists’ strongholds in northeastern Nigeria on Monday night.

Obama’s comments came as the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau — who has a $7 million U.S. bounty on his head — released a video in which he said God had commanded him to sell women in the market, adding that girls should marry, not go to school.

Obama called the abductions “heartbreaking” and “outrageous.”

“You’ve got one of the worst regional or local terrorist organizations in Boko Haram in Nigeria,” Obama told ABC News, adding that the Islamist group had been “killing people ruthlessly for many years now,” and that the mass abduction of the students might help “mobilize the entire international community to finally do something against this horrendous organization.”

Though White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the United States was not considering providing military resources “at this point” to help battle Boko Haram, earlier reports in the New York Times said the U.S. was already doing that.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry told reporters at the State Department that during a phone call with the Nigerian leader Tuesday, Jonathan accepted the American offer.

Kerry said the U.S. Embassy in Abuja was prepared to form a “coordination cell that could provide expertise on intelligence, investigations and hostage negotiations, and to help facilitate information-sharing and victim assistance.”

“We remain deeply concerned about the welfare of these young girls, and we want to provide whatever assistance is possible in order to help for their safe return to their families,” Kerry said.

Pressure on the Obama administration also came from Capitol Hill, as all 20 female members of the U.S. Senate signed a letter asking Obama to press the United Nations Security Council to acknowledge Boko Haram’s ties to Al Qaeda, and to ask the U.N. to consider international sanctions.

Boko Haram’s reign of terror in recent years has been unabated, with attacks on churches, a bus station, school dormitories and villages, always leaving a wake of multiple murders. Three months ago, gunmen reportedly linked to the group killed dozens of students at a school in Yobe state, slitting the throats of some and locking others in dormitories that were then set ablaze.

Because of the fears of Boko Haram, which is staunchly opposed to all forms of Western education, schools have been closed in the northeast region. The girls who were abducted had gathered from many district schools to they could take exams. They were protected by two security guards, who were easily overpowered as the gunmen forced the girls onto trucks and drove them into the forest.
A November report by Human Rights Watch said Boko Haram regularly abducts scores of women and girls—some as young as 12 — to traffic them as sex slaves or to force them to become combatants.

“Witnesses described Boko Haram laying siege to towns, villages and highways; looting and burning houses, shops and vehicles; and executing and decapitating people,” the report said.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/05/07/obama-send-u-s-military-officials-nigeria-help-rescue-kidnapped-girls/

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Obama to Send US Military Officials to Nigeria to Help Rescue Kidnapped Girls


Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan accepted President Obama’s offer Tuesday to help in the rescue of over 200 schoolgirls who were kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram– just as reports emerged that the group had abducted eight more girls from another remote village.


The Obama administration reportedly already had a military presence in Nigeria, working with the French and Nigerians to use unarmed drones to gather intelligence. Now the U.S. will send additional military, intelligence and law enforcement advisers to the country to help find and rescue the girls who were abducted on April 14 from a rural high school in Nigeria’s Muslim-dominated northeast.




Obama called the abductions “heartbreaking” and “outrageous.”



Though White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the United States was not considering providing military resources “at this point” to help battle Boko Haram, earlier reports in the New York Times said the U.S. was already doing that.



http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/05/...dnapped-girls/

intarestinn

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Did Hillary Clinton Hurt the Fight Against Boko Haram by Refusing to Call Them Terrorists?


As the world summons fresh outrage over another Boko Haram attack that left more than 300 people dead, a report in The Daily Beast suggests that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dropped the ball and let Boko Haram grow in power by not labeling the group a terrorist organization when she was in office, despite pressure to do so from many leaders and elected officials.

Some experts are claiming this failure on Clinton’s part is impacting the ability of officials to go after Boko Haram and rescue the 276 Nigerian schoolgirls who were abducted by the group last month.

Clinton is getting widespread credit for sending out a May 4 tweet—using hashtag #BringBackOurGirls—that brought significant attention to the abduction, which she said was “abominable, it’s criminal, it’s an act of terrorism and it really merits the fullest response possible, first and foremost from the government of Nigeria.”

But not everyone is buying the Clinton story.

“The one thing she could have done, the one tool she had at her disposal, she didn’t use. And nobody can say she wasn’t urged to do it. It’s gross hypocrisy,” a former senior U.S. official who was involved in the debate told The Daily Beast. “The FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department really wanted Boko Haram designated, they wanted the authorities that would provide to go after them, and they voiced that repeatedly to elected officials.”

Some officials claim that Clinton’s refusal to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization —an action her successor John Kerry took in November 2013 — denied the U.S. certain tools and authorities, including several found in the Patriot Act, that would cut off access to the U.S. financial system for the organization and anyone associating with it, and would encourage other nations to take similar measures.

“For years, Boko Haram has terrorized Nigeria and Western interests in the region with few consequences,” Sen. James Risch told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “The U.S. government should have moved more quickly to list them as a terrorist organization and brought U.S. resources to track and disrupt their activities. The failure to act swiftly has had consequences.”

Patrick Meehan, a Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, said if Clinton had placed Boko Haram on the terrorism list in 2011, U.S. law enforcement agencies now being deployed to Nigeria to help search for the girls might have been in a better position.

“We lost two years of increased scrutiny. The kind of support that is taking place now would have been in place two years ago,” he said. The designation would have “enhanced the capacity of our agencies to do the work that was necessary. We were very frustrated, it was a long delay.”

But not everyone agrees with that perspective. One counterterrorism official told The Daily Beast that the U.S. didn’t really lose much without the designation happening earlier.

“Designation is an important tool, it’s not the only tool,” this official said. “There are a lot of other things you can do in counterterrorism that doesn’t require a designation. …The utility was limited, the symbolism was perhaps significant, but the more important issue was how we were dealing with the Nigerians.”

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, who served in that position from 2009 to 2013, was a vocal opponent of the designation within the White House because he was focused on preserving the relationship between Washington and Abuja.

“There was a concern that putting Boko Haram on the foreign terrorist list would in fact raise its profile, give it greater publicity, give it greater credibility, help in its recruitment and also probably drive more assistance in its direction,” Carson told The Daily Beast.

Meanwhile, as the debate rages, Boko Haram has brought increased scrutiny with another attack that left more than 300 people dead.

“I believe the kidnap of these girls will be the beginning of the end for terror in Nigeria,” Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said at the opening of the World Economic Forum meeting in Abuja.

Boko Haram militants attacked Gamboru Ngala, a remote state capital near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon that has been used as a staging ground for troops in the search for the girls, Boko Haram killed about 310 people, many of them burned alive.

“Every day when I wake up and I think about young girls in Nigeria or children caught up in the conflict in Syria, when there are times in which I want to reach out and save those kids. And having to think through what levers, what powers do we have at any given moment, I think drop by drop by drop that we can erode and wear down these forces that are so destructive,” President Obama said Wednesday night in Los Angeles.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/05/08/hillary-clinton-hurt-fight-boko-haram-refusing-call-terrorists/

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mii luv michelle obama

Michelle Obama shared this photo of herself along with the caption 'Our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families.'

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BringBackOurGirls: Michelle Obama and Malala join campaign to free 276 Nigerian teenagers kidnapped by Islamic extremists

Celebrities have joined #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign
Male stars are also uploading images saying: 'Real men don't buy girls'
Campaign to recover the 276 girls kidnapped from their school in Nigeria
Girls were kidnapped on April 14 by Islamist militant group Boko Haram
Protests have been going on across the country demanding action
Nigerian Police offering £300,000 reward for help locating the children



Celebrities around the world have voiced their outrage over the abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria last month, flooding social media with posts using the hashtag: #BringBackOurGirls.

Michelle Obama, Malala Yousafzai, Hillary Clinton, and Amy Poehler are among those lending their support to the social media campaign, which encourages military intervention to recover the girls who were kidnapped from their school by Boko Haram rebels in north-east Nigeria.

Malala Yousafzai told CNN that the kidnapped girls were her 'sisters'. Angelina Jolie also spoke publicly about the kidnapping, which she called 'unthinkable cruelty and evil'.

Michelle Obama shared a photograph on Twitter of herself holding up a sign reading 'Bring back our girls', accompanied by the caption: 'Our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families. It's time to #BringBackOurGirls. -mo'

The sign-off 'mo' means that the tweet was written by the First Lady herself and not a staffer.

The campaign refers to the kidnapping of 276 girls from their school in Chibok, north-east Nigeria, on April 14.

The Islamist militant group Boko Haram attacked the school, which had been reopened so that students could take their final exams, despite security concerns.

Most schools in the state had closed due to fear that Boko Haram, which opposes 'Western' education, including the education of girls, would attack.

On the night of April 14, more than 300 girls were kidnapped at gunpoint, but approximately 50 girls escaped by jumping off the back of the trucks as they drove into the Sambisa forest.

Family members of the kidnapped girls formed makeshift search parties and ventured into the forest to find the girls, armed with homemade weapons, but they have not found the girls, whom they now fear have been sold into slavery.

It has also emerged that the group had kidnapped another 11 girls from the village of Warabe in Borno yesterday, increasing the international pressure for the extremist group to be stopped and the girls returned.

Nigerian Police are now offering a £300,000 reward to anyone who can help them find the missing children.

Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram said he would sell the remaining captives as slaves for as little as £7.

In a video, Shekau declares: 'I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah.'

With outrage growing over the failure to rescue the girls, thousands of Nigerians took to the streets of the country’s largest city Lagos last week to protest at their government’s inability to find the victims.

The Bring Back Our Girls hashtag was first used on April 23 by a Nigerian lawayer, Ibrahim M. Abdullahi, who tweeted the phrase during a speech given by Dr Oby Ezekwesili, Vice President of the World Bank for Africa, at a UNESCO event.

The hashtag gained traction in Nigeria and started trending there two weeks ago and has now been picked up internationally, with people around the world sharing photos of themselves holding up signs reading #BringBackOurGirls.

Protests have also taken place around the world, with around 75 protesters rallying outside the Nigerian embassy in Washington on Tuesday wearing Bring Back Our Girls T-shirts.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has said security forces are doing all they can to find the girls.

It has been reported that his government is in negotiations with the terrorists who are demanding an unspecified ransom for the students' release.

The White House has branded the kidnapping an 'outrage and tragedy'.

The State Department said the US are sending a 'co-ordination cell' including military personnel and law experts to Nigeria.

Pledging his support, President Obama said: 'We're going to do everything we can to provide assistance to them.

'In the short term our goal is obviously to help the international community, and the Nigerian government, as a team to do everything we can to recover these young ladies.'

British Special Forces have also been put on standby after Foreign Secretary William Hague described the abduction as 'disgusting and immoral'.

Military chiefs in London are considering sending in the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service to help search for the schoolgirls.

Downing Street revealed British security experts would be joining teams from France and the US in trying to find the girls.

The team has been drawn from Whitehall departments including Defence, International Development and the Foreign Office.

It is likely to include military officers but will concentrate on planning, co-ordination and advice to local authorities, rather than getting involved in operations on the ground to free the girls.

However, Mr Hague has become frustrated with the situation, after he first offered his assistance nearly three weeks ago.

He told Sky News: 'It's difficult of course because this is primarily a matter for Nigeria and Britain can't just walk in there... and do as we like.

'It's very frustrating when the world can't act to deal with these things promptly because the trail goes cold of course after several weeks.'

A social media campaign to raise awareness globally about the kidnapping is gaining momentum with celebrities including Mary J Blige adding their support.

The mass kidnapping occurred the same day as a bomb blast, also blamed on Boko Haram, that killed 75 people on the edge of Abuja and marked the first attack on the capital in two years.

The militants repeated that bomb attack more than two weeks later in almost exactly the same spot, killing 19 people and wounding 34 in the suburb of Nyanya.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2622999/Celebrities-join-campaign-bring-kidnapped-Nigerian-girls.html

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Nigeria: As Shekau Claims Responsibility - Two Abducted Schoolgirls Die


An intermediary of Boko Haram has claimed that two of the girls abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, have died from snakebite while 20 others are critically ill, The Associated Press (AP) reports.

This shocking news has come as a blow to millions of Nigerians and people from around the world who have joined the BringBackOurGirls movement, demanding the release of the schoolgirls in good condition.

In a televised media chat on Sunday, President Goodluck Jonathan said that an encouraging bit of news so far was the fact that there had been no report of loss of lives.

However, the terrorist sect's leader, Abubakar Shekau, has released a new video claiming credit for the kidnap of the schoolgirls and threateninh to sell out the girls.

The Boko Haram kingpin further said that the sect was ready to negotiate ransoms for the girls. The man who claimed to be an intermediary also said that the Christians among the girls had been forced to convert to Islam.

President Jonathan had, during Sunday's "Presidential Media Chat" dismissed insinuations that the federal government was negotiating with Boko Haram to secure the release of the abducted schoolgirls, adding that the government could not have been negotiating with faceless people.

I kidnapped your schoolgirls, Shekau claims in new video Shekau, in a video, claimed responsibility for the abduction of more than 200 final-year students GSS, Chibok, Borno State.

In the video, the hoodlum said,"I abducted your girls. By Allah, I will sell them in the market, and Allah has commanded me to sell them in the market."

"There is a market for selling human beings. Allah says I should sell them. He commands me to sell them. I will sell women. I will sell women," he continued in local Hausa language.

However, the BBC Hausa Service points out that the Boko Haram leader did not state the number of girls abducted, nor where they were taken or are now.

Dressed in his usual combat attire and armed with AK47 rifle, Shekau who spoke in Hausa and some Arabic said the girls would be held the way their colleagues were being kept in various detention cells of the military "without any negotiations ".

He said the girls are regarded as war booties, upon whom his group has rights over and can even "sell them in market ", if they so wish.

"We would also give their hands in marriage because they are our slaves. We would marry them out at the age of nine. We would marry them out at the age of 12," he said.

"Western education is sin, it is forbidden, women must go and marry," he said.

He said the abduction of the girls was justifiable because "it is just the same way they incarcerated our members in Nigerian prisons"

One of the parents of the abducted girls, Ms Martha Yarama Ndirpaya, in her interview with the Hausa service of the (BBC) has accused the federal government of being insensitive to the plight of the girls and its slow pace of rescuing them from the heartless abductors.

In a broadcast appearance on Sunday, Jonathan promised, "Anywhere the girls are, we will surely get them out."

The president described the girls' abduction as a trying and painful time and pleaded for the cooperation of parents, guardians and local communities in the rescue efforts.

Earlier yesterday, President Jonathan ordered top security officials to do everything possible to secure their release.

Officials also reported that they believe some of the 276 missing girls have been moved across the border into Cameroon and Chad.

Insurgent attack Cameroon, free detained members

Gunmen crossed the border from Nigeria into northern Cameroon yesterday, killing two people and freeing suspected militants being held at an army post. Authorities believe the assailants are members of the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram, the Hausa service of the Voice of America (VOA) reports.

Thirty armed men entered Cameroon's territory from Nigeria's Borno State early yesterday and attacked a military post in the town of Kousseri.

Parts of the town, which also borders Chad, were ransacked in the attack. Cameroon's state radio reported that a soldier and a prisoner were killed and an undisclosed number of Boko Haram members freed.

State radio journalist Ebenezer Akanga, who is based in the area, told VOA that the invaders opened fire indiscriminately. "As soon as they got to the brigade [military post] they opened fire," Akanga said. "One of the gendarmes [military policeman] riposted in an attempt to push back the assailants. The members freed one of theirs who was being held under custody after he was arrested last Saturday in Kousseri with arms."

The attackers left with a huge consignment of arms and ammunition, according to Akanga, who said that defence forces have tightened security along the borders.

It's the third time Boko Haram has attacked the Cameroonian city.

Cameroon's government responded to critics who accuse officials of not doing enough to fight Boko Haram.

"We all know the saying that when the neighbour's house is consumed by fire there is risk that we receive sparks," said government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma. "Cameroon is resolutely committed in collaboration with its neighboring countries in the fight against terrorism and border crime."

Scores killed as Boko Haram Attacks Gamboru Market

Scores of persons have been feared killed in a border town of Gamboru-Ngala, Borno State, following a broad day attack on locals by gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram insurgents, who invaded the community in their hundreds, shooting and freely detonating explosives.

Gamboru-Ngala is about 130km away from Maiduguri, the state capital.

The attack, which started at about 11am, dragged on till evening as soldiers of the Nigerian Army engaged the attackers in a deadly shootout.

A ranking officer at the Department of State Services (DSS), who sought anonymity, confirmed the incident to LEADERSHIP. He could not give the casualty figures, but a resident of Maiduguri, Ari Fantami, who claimed to have relatives in the attacked border town, said, "They said many people have been killed or injured, but my brother there could not tell because they had to run for their lives. They attacked and burnt many security posts, the market, local government offices and homes. He also told me that many people may have died because the shooting was everywhere. I am very, very worried for him because at the time he spoke to us, he said he was in the bush".

Obasanjo, Amosun lead protest in Abeokuta

Ogun State women yesterday in Abeokuta, the state capital, joined other compatriots within and outside the country to ask the federal government to draw out new strategies that would ensure the immediate release of over 200 schoolgirls abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State.

The placard-carrying women, clad in black attire and led by the wives of Governor Ibikunle Amosun and former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Mrs Olufunso Amosun and Bola Obasanjo respectively, and the Iyalode of Yorubaland, Alaba Lawson, trooped out in a protest against the abduction of the girls by the Boko Haram sect.

The women threw the challenge at a solidarity rally, calling for their unconditional release and pleaded with the government at the centre to protect them from all forms of violence.

At the end of the protest walk which took off from the MKO Abiola Stadium through Government House in Isale Igbehin, the State House of Assembly, and terminated at the Governor's Office, a letter of appeal asking the federal government to expedite action in the search for the girls held hostage since April 14 was delivered to Governor Amosun for onward delivery to President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja.

Speaking while delivering the letter on behalf of other mothers, Mrs Amosun said they were joining other women across the globe to identify with the abducted girls and their parents who are going through hard times, pointing out that what happened to them could happen to anybody.

"Today, we women of Ogun all join our faith to lend our voices to the call by other women in the country and across the world. We want to show our sympathy for the schoolgirls that were kidnapped in their hostels in Chibok and identify with their parents in these trying times.

"We are worried about their safety, because nobody knows where they are. It is these girls today,it could happen to anyone, so we are pleading that the president does something quickly," Mrs Amosun appealed.

Appreciating the women for joining in the solidarity walk, Mrs Amosun urged them to pray ceaselessly for fruitful results as the search for the abducted girls continues.

Responding, Governor Amosun assured the women that their letter would be delivered to the president in due course, calling on Nigerians to work in harmony and do things that would unite all tribes in the country.

"Violence will do us no good. We are all one in Nigeria, whether Muslims, Christians, Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa."

Boko Haram issue does not need window dressing - ASUU

The national leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities yesterday stated that the federal government is not capable of protecting its citizens amidst the insurgency going on in the country.

This was disclosed in a statement signed by the union's national president, Comrade Nasir Fagge Isa, during a press briefing in Abuja.

The union has expressed disappointment over the way and manner the federal government is handling the affairs of the country, saying that adhoc fire bridge approaches and half measures cannot work.

"Boko Haram issue does not require window dressing but a surgical treatment. The root causes must be known and addressed," said the union. "We have reached a point where the more the government claims to have tried to curb the insurgency activities, the more insurgency grows to other frontiers. It is therefore apparent that the only recipe will be to undertake a deep, new comprehensive analysis of the root causes of the insurgency that has proved till now intractable and is destroying national integrity.


go read da rest

http://allafrica.com/stories/201405060107.html?page=3

[blugiant]

part 2

Nigeria: As Shekau Claims Responsibility - Two Abducted Schoolgirls Die


The union further stated that "the insurgency has led to the death of thousands of people, depressed the economy, intensified ethno-religious and regional tension".

Abducted Schoolgirls: Police Quiz Protest Leader For 8 Hours

Police operatives from the Asokoro Police Station yesterday quizzed the leader of the protest for the release of the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls, Mrs Naomi Murlah Nyadar, over alleged impersonation.

LEADERSHIP learnt that Nyadar, leader of "Bring Back Our Girls" group of over 500 women that staged a protest march to the National Assembly to seek the immediate action on the abduction of 234 secondary school girls, was arrested following the orders of the first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, during a meeting with mothers of the abducted girls.

Murlah was reportedly arrested in the early hours of yesterday for impersonation during the stakeholders' meeting convened at the First Lady's conference room at the Presidential Villa.

However, both the Nigeria Police and an aide of the first lady denied any involvement in Nyadar's arrest and detention.

In a statement signed by the force public relations officer, CSP Frank Mba, he said the police only invited Nyadar to the station and was, shortly after, released after she cooperated with the police.

According to Mba, "Police operatives this morning, 05/05/2014, invited one Mrs Nyadar Naomi Mutah, a native of Chibok and Deputy Director at the National Directorate of Employment, Abuja.

"It was purely an interactive and fact-finding interview. Mrs Nyadar cooperated with the Police in the course of the interview and was immediately allowed to return home to her loved ones. She was never arrested nor detained."

The media assistant to the first lady, Mr Ayo Adewuyi, in his reaction to allegation that the first lady ordered the arrest of Mrs Nyadar, said Patience Jonathan did not order arrest of Nyadar, stressing that Nyadar left the State House with other members of the delegation.

Against instruction that all the women at the meeting should write down their names at the entrance to the First Lady's conference room, Naomi who is a deputy director at the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in Abuja was said to have written down her name as Grace, the name of one of the women cleared by security to attend the meeting from Borno State.

Mrs. Jonathan, it was learnt, told the meeting that Naomi had claimed earlier that she was one of the parents whose children were abducted.

Although she admitted that Naomi did impersonate at the meeting, the first lady noted that she did not order the arrest of the woman who attended "the women stakeholders' meeting discussing ways and best strategies to ensure the release of the abducted children".

The statement made available to LEADERSHIP yesterday notes: "We wish to state without any iota of equivocation that the First Lady did not order the arrest of any woman or any one for that matter before, during and after the meeting.

"It is instructive to note that the meeting ended after three o clock, Monday morning and all those invited to the meeting including a handful of journalists who stayed throughout the lengthy meeting left the Presidential Villa thereafter. The Naomi Murlah mentioned in one of the reports came to the meeting as part of Borno delegation. The women were alarmed when someone who knew her told the meeting that she was impersonating one of the mothers of the allegedly abducted children on the basis for which she attended the meeting.


"The women expressed their disappointment when she confirmed that she is not a biological mother to any of the abducted children. Naomi left the State House with other members of the delegation. If she was arrested as claimed, then enquiries about her arrest should therefore be directed to the security agencies. It is an unfounded rumour which the First Lady knows nothing about."

According to reports, Patience Jonathan, while ordering Naomi's arrest, had said, "When they said they have come to lay complaint to the government and the National Assembly, I asked for the leader of the mothers whose children were abducted. This woman was the one that came forward and said that her child was abducted. I believed her and I asked the women affairs minister to follow her to the National Assembly.

"This is the woman who went to National Assembly with the women in black and she claimed that her child was missing and that she is the leader of parents that their children are missing in Chibok. Senate

President believed them, even I believed them. God is leading us to the truth. Our coming out is not in vain. She called people like Oby to follow her as they also believed her. Oby is innocent and I don't blame her because even I as first lady was moved.

"Today, when I sighted her, I said within myself that we will get to the conclusion today because one of those whose children are missing is here. But to my greatest surprise, when we asked her, she said sh's a representative. She wrote down her name as Grace. A whole civil servant impersonating; she should be arrested for impersonation."

Asking the Borno State commissioner of police who was at the meeting to take action on the matter, she said: "You have to take this woman to I.G. and the president."

At the meeting, Naomi was also said to have confessed that she had no child among the abducted children but that she was contacted to represent one of those persons expected to attend the meeting at the First Lady's conference room.

"It was in the morning that somebody called me from Borno State, one Mrs Grace. She said that she was supposed to come. But that since we are here as Chibok representatives, that we should come and represent her here," she said.

Asked whether she had been to Chibok in the last one year, she said : "I have not gone to Chibok in the past one year."

Minister of women affairs Zainab Maina told the meeting that the woman had last week admitted that she was one of the mothers of the abducted girls in Chibok.

She said: "I saw this lady and two others on Tuesday. My deputy director came into my office and said, you are talking about going to Chibok; mothers of those abducted girls from Chibok are here and they are in Eagle Square. When I asked them if they are mothers from Chibok, they said yes. I asked them where is their destination, and they said National Assembly and Villa.

"I said no, you can't come to Villa, maybe National Assembly. I followed them to National Assembly to listen to what they wanted to tell the legislators. I sat to the end until they finished and I then asked them for the leader of the delegation. She came forward and I asked her where are the girls from Chibok, how many of them and if she could give me the names of the girls, and she said that they were not from Chibok and that they are based in Abuja.

"I shouted oh my God, you have killed me. If I knew you are from Abuja, I won't waste my time to come here and talk to you. Later on, somebody made enquiries and my permanent secretary took her phone number and name, and she is a deputy director in NDE. I was really angry with them and walked out from the place."

She added: "I wish to state without any iota of equivocation that the first lady did not order the arrest of any woman or anyone for that matter, before, during or after the meeting. "

Meanwhile, one of the arrowheads in the sit-in protest to free the abducted schoolgirls and former minister of education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, in her twitter account, told how the operatives whisked Nyadar to the police station and detained her for eight hours.

According to Ezekwesili, after frisking Nyadar for eight hours a presidency van came and whisked her to an unknown destination.

Some of her twits read: "Protest leaders moved from Asokoro police station in presidency van.

" AP is reporting that Nigeria's First Lady, Patience Jonathan ordered the arrest of protest leader.

"8 hours after Mrs Naomi Mutah Nyadar was detained unjustly, the police have refused to speak to her husband and lawyer.

"I have just read her arrest was for her claim to be a mother of one of the abducted Chibok girls. Is the police accusing her of lying or is there something else?

"Mrs Mutah has been taken from Asokoro police station to an unknown destination. Her husband was not even told her destination."

Ezekwesili lamented that she could not believe this was the democracy for which some of them were beaten on the streets of Lagos.

Dame Patience wanted to humiliate Governor Shettima's wife in Villa -- Aide

First Lady Patience Jonathan had a clear motive of humiliating Hajiya Nana Shettima, wife of Governor Kashim Shettima, at a scheduled meeting in the Villa and it was part of the reasons the governor's wife sent a representative at the meeting and remained in Maiduguri to prepare for her planned trip to Chibok where she met with parents of the abducted girls in order to support them.

Mrs Jonathan was yesterday reported accusing the governor's wife of showing less concern over the abduction because she didn't attend meetings held by women at the Villa on Saturday and Sunday.

Press secretary to the Borno governor's wife, Aisha Muhammad Hassan, in a reaction yesterday said while Dame Patience painted a different picture, Mrs Shettima had actually travelled to Abuja all the way from Maiduguri on April 28 and, on the evening of that day, she met the first lady at the Villa and took two hours to brief her on the schoolgirls' abduction as well as her (Mrs Shettima's) personal effort and that of her husband, Governor Shettima, towards the freedom of the girls. Some wives of service chiefs and national women leader of the PDP, Mrs Kema Chikwe, were present when the governor's wife met with the first lady.

Hassan noted that it was shocking to the governor's wife when she saw Dame Patience on the television accusing the governor of Borno as being responsible for the abduction. It became clear to the governor's wife that from the body language of the first lady and some of her close associates at the Saturday meeting, there was high possibility that the first lady's demand for the governor's wife on Sunday was to humiliate her by accusing her husband to her face in the midst of participants at the meeting and she thought it was better she concentrated on her planned trip to Chibok on Monday morning.

Hassan explained that before her meeting with Dame Patience on April 28, the governor's wife had held a meeting with a coalition of women groups that included stakeholders of Chibok, officials of the National Council of Women Societies, wives of security chiefs in Borno State, the Christian Association of Nigeria, the Federation of Muslim Women of Nigeria, Association of Christian Widows, Association of Muslim Widows, the National Association of Women Journalists, selected female professionals that included university lecturers, political appointees and the principal of the attacked school after which a communique was issued as was reported by the media.

Stand By Govt, Tinubu Urges All Nigerians

Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Lagos State governor Ahmed Tinubu yesterday called on Nigerians to shun ethnic, political and religious divide and file unanimously behind government in its effort at rescuing the 234 schoolsgirls abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.

Government on its part, the APC leader also noted, must do its best in refining its military and intelligence operation in the best possible manner that would enable it tackle the situation, even as he urged government to first admit that its solely military approach had been inadequate.

"This nation needs her children back and all of us, regardless of political stripe, religion, region and origin, stand behind government as long as government does its utmost to win back the lives of our daughters. Until then, we are reduced to peering into the sky and hoping for the hand of Providence to redeem us, be you a Christian or a Muslim," he stated.

In a statement he issued yesterday on the increasing spate of insurgency in the country, he urged Nigerians to stand united against the threat to their national existence, noting that the twin-bombings in Nyanya in a space of two weeks poses a challenge to all Nigerians.

He said, "The explosion was a brazen attempt to demoralize the nation by striking an important transportation hub in our beloved nation's capital. The second bombing stands as an act of evil defiance of constituted authority. The terrorists now try to frighten us by showing that our security forces are unable to stop them, even in our nation's capital.

"However, whatever terrible lesson they think they teach us, we refuse to learn.

Our classroom is life, liberty and justice. If the people were to see government as their ally and true guardian, Boko Haram will have no space to operate. Right now it operates in the space created by widespread indifference and cynicism."

Urging government to refine its military operations, Tinubu who said he was not in any way trying to curry political advantage noted that he was only stating the obvious, his political differences with the Jonathan administration notwithstanding.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201405060107.html?page=7

[lonewolf]

I'm going to put a different spin on this. Western influence has directly caused the kidnapping or abduction of these children. Western influence has an obligation to safely reunite these children to their parents.

Let's put aside politics and focus on the most important issue in this situation. The safe return of these children to their families...after that mission is accomplished, we can discuss the politics of the region.

Innocent children should not be used as a pawn of politics.