. First Lady orders arrest of protester
. Rallies in Abuja, Maiduguri, Lagos
. 2 girls die, 20 others take ill – Report
The leader of Boko Haram threatened yesterday to sell the more than 200 teenage schoolgirls abducted in Borno State three weeks ago.
In a video clip reviewed by Daily Trust yesterday, Imam Abubakar Shekau for the first time claimed responsibility for the April 14 mass abduction at the Government Secondary School Chibok.
“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Shekau said in the 57-minute video in which he appeared with some of his followers.
“There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women.”
He said the girls would also be married out to available suitors.
Shekau did not give the number of girls seized by his men, who came to the girls’ hostels wearing military uniform late in the night. They deceived the girls by pretending to be soldiers on rescue mission because of an impending attack, and loaded them into trucks.
About 50 of the girls had escaped in the days following the abduction, but over 200 others are believed to be in Boko Haram captivity.
In the video, Shekau claimed that during holy wars, Islam allows capturing people including women as spoils of war.
“I will hold you (abducted girls) as slaves. Who told you there are no slaves, under human rights slogan? Bloody liar! I will marry off a woman at the age of nine. I will marry off a girl at the age of 12,” he said.
He also threatened to capture prominent Nigerian and world leaders whom he said “would be sold off at lower prices.”
Shekau alluded that the girls were taken because security forces have arrested and detained his followers.
“I abducted girls at a Western education school and you are disturbed. I said Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married,” he said.
“You are furious because we are holding people as slaves…. You arrested and threw people (my followers) in prison. What is your justification? You do yours but you are saying we should not follow Allah’s command.”
The video could not be independently verified and the authorities are yet to comment on it.
Exhaustion
The mass abduction and the failure to find the girls three weeks after have sparked national outrage with protests in Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Maiduguri, Kaduna and other major cities.
First Lady Patience Jonathan fueled the anger when she expressed doubts there was any kidnapping, ordered the arrests of a protest leader and accused her of belonging to Boko Haram. She spoke at a meeting with some Borno officials which started Sunday night and ended around 3am yesterday.
On Sunday, President Goodluck Jonathan pledged to rescue the girls but asked their parents to provide photographs of their missing children, even though the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has already submitted the names and photographs to his wife on Friday night. WAEC is the agency organising the school-leaving certificate examinations that the girls were sitting for when they were taken.
Jonathan has also set up a “fact-finding” committee on the incident, drawing flaks from people who said rescue operation should be the priority rather than tangling up the issue in red-tape.
But the president defended his action, saying there have been contradictions in numbers of the missing students and the circumstances surrounding their disappearance.
The Borno State police command and the State Security Service (SSS) said on Friday they had established that no fewer than 276 girls were abducted out of which 53 girls had returned.
There are reports also that some of the girls have been ferried across neighboring countries of Niger, Chad and Cameroon and married off to insurgents while some have died as a result of ailments and exhaustion.
A report by the Associated Press news agency yesterday said an unnamed intermediary with Boko Haram said two of the girls have died of snakebite and about 20 have fallen ill.
He said also that Boko Haram is ready to negotiate ransoms for the girls. But President Jonathan on Sunday said no negotiations were going on with the abductors.
ANNOUNCEMENT: 1. Access and attempt UTME Past Questions Online in CBT format - Earn up to N10,000 when you refer 50 candidates to our portal - visit www.utme.assure.com.ng 2. Download unlimited e-books in various disciplines for FREE! Visit www.gablibrary.com.ng
No comments:
Post a Comment