Jonathan to blame for Chibok girls kidnap – Shettima

-Goodluck Jonathan refused to believe kidnap of Chibok school girls was real until it was too late.

-Gov. Shettima of Borno also revealed he almost lost his position due to the kidnap of the school girls.

Jonathan didn’t have the true perspective on Chibok girls.

Fresh facts have emerged on circumstances surrounding the abduction of the Chibok school girls in Borno state, during the administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan.

Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno, submitted that the inability of former president Goodluck Jonathan to see beyond the smokescreen instituted by his political aides greatly contributed to the final disappearance of the kidnapped girls.

He made a disclosure of his encounter with Jonathan regarding the Chibok girls during the unveiling of a book written by the spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bolaji Abdullahi: ‘On a platter of gold: How Jonathan won and lost Nigeria’ in Abuja, yesterday.

“When the Chibok girls saga started, they made the president to believe that there was no abduction; that the Chibok girls were kidnapped by the governor of Borno State ostensibly to embarrass the Jonathan administration and he believed that line of story.

“I was in Chibok, my wife was in Chibok and there was a global outcry on the issue but Jonathan was in a world of his own created by the clowns and also the misfits around him. I wasn’t invited to Abuja until nearly three weeks later and even when I was invited to Abuja, I was quite thrilled that at last I was getting the attention of my leader.

“I was asked to come along with the Commissioner of Police, the Divisional Police Officer in Chibok, the Commissioner for Education, the military commander in Chibok and the Director of DSS.

“We were all ushered into the Villa. Sadly, when the president came in, he was still in that mood.

“He started threatening the school principal: ‘Principal, you must tell me where the girls are. Commissioner of Police, you have to tell me.’

“He immediately ordered the arrest of the principal, the DPO, Commissioner of Police and the Director of DSS. He said they must produce the girls.

“In this very unfortunate saga, MD Abubakar, the then IGP arrested them, took them to the Force Headquarters and informed them; ‘Lady and gentlemen, I cannot hurt you because I am a man of conscience. I will let you go based on self-recognition.’

“And they were released to go back to their duty posts but I was shocked, I was quite taken aback because I thought solutions were going to be found to a very serious national challenge.

“Instead, the president was still of the mindset that those girls were not abducted and that goes to show the quality of leadership in this country,” he said.

“Incidentally, the Brigade Commander in Chibok, was an Ijaw man, one Capt. Godknows. And because they know the president is such a very unsophisticated simpleton, he is such an honest man, they knew that if they had brought in the man, they would have gotten him confused.

“So, they deliberately refused to bring the Brigade Commander in Chibok and that made the president to lose a true perspective on the issues.

“But we have to give it to him, that by conceding defeat, he saved the nation from the precipice.

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“There was a time he wanted to remove me at all costs. In the Federal Executive Council, they were all speaking in the same tone that this Borno governor must be removed for embarrassing the government; that I was the problem.

“However, two Nigerians stood out. He sought the opinion of Mohammed Adoke Bello, the then Attorney General who told him, ‘Mr President, you have no power to remove even an elected councilor.’

“Then he sought the opinion of other Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) in his team, the Minister of Special Duties, Tanimu Turaki. And Turaki also told him that ‘Mr President, you have no power to remove a sitting governor’.

And that was how the matter died,” he narrated.