Jonathan's N100m largesse: Chibok girls’ parents, community leaders clash

Controversy has erupted between parents of the kidnapped girls and leaders of the Chibok community in Abuja over an alleged N100m largesse given by President Goodluck Jonathan.


Some of the parents, who spoke in separate interviews on Tuesday with the British Broadcasting Corporation Hausa service, accused the Chibok community leaders of making a fortune out of their misfortune.

One parent said, “When we came to Abuja, we were given some money. I received N200,000, some got N300,000 and some got nothing at all. Somebody told me that they (Presidency) gave about N100m.”

Another parent claimed that some of them that did not make the Abuja trip received as low as N7,000.

He said, “I was not able to go to Abuja; they chose some people from among us. Some received N100,000, some received N200,000, some N300,000. Those of us in the village were given N7,000. This is not a thing of joy. What we want are our girls to be brought back home.”

Asked if he preferred to collect the money instead of the return of his daughter, he replied, “We have not sold our daughters. I went to the farm and before I returned, the money was kept for me. This is not right.”

The BBC had in the report said the parents were given sums ranging from N30,000 to N300,000.

The Chairman of the Kibaku area Development Association, Abuja chapter, Dr. Bitrus Pogu, who spoke on behalf of the Chibok community in Abuja, dismissed allegation against his group.

He also told the BBC that no Chibok parent could accuse him and members of the group of indifference to the plight of the kidnapped girls.

Pogu said, “We don’t know how much was given but we are glad to note that the parents and the girls (who escaped) were given money in envelopes. The only role we played was to contact them to prepare to come to Abuja.”

He also told one of our correspondents that the money that was shared to the Chibok parents was handled by Aso Rock officials.

He said, “The report is a lie, we (community leaders) didn’t share any money. The money that was shared to the parents in envelopes was shared by Presidency officials. How can they even give out N100m? We Nigerians just like stories.

“How can they give out such an amount of money? I don’t know how much they gave because I didn’t collect money, we Chibok elders only led them (parents of abducted girls and some escaped girls) to the President for the meeting.

“All these stories of N100m is just a bullshit; there is nothing like that and it is even funny talking about such a thing.”

Also, the Chairman of the Chibok community, Tsambido Abana, dismissed the allegation that the largesse was shared among the parents and that some were shortchanged by the leadership of the association.

He said, “There is no iota of truth in that report. I don’t even want to talk about it because I don’t know how such a story came about. The money that was shared to the parents was handled by Presidency officials who gave out envelopes to the parents, so I was not involved in the sharing and I can’t say anything about it.”

The BringBackOurGirls group, has however come down hard on the Presidency for allegedly doling money to more the Chibok girls parents.

It stated that the traumatised parents did not need money but psycho-social support.

The BBOG spokesman, Rotimi Olawale, said, “why should the Presidency give money to the parents? What is it meant for? It is a shameless thing to do. Is it money the parents need, because money cannot solve the trauma they are going through now. What the parents need is psycho-social support and this is what we expected the government to provide for them.

“For us in the BringBackOurGirls, our focus is on bringing back the girls and we can’t be distracted by this controversy which was meant to cause disunity in the little Chibok community.”

But the Presidency denied that money was given to the girls’ parents.

Presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, said the onus lay on those who made the allegation to prove it.

He said, “The allegation is completely untrue. Nobody distributed any envelope after the meeting. The meeting was held in the Villa, a public place. After the meeting, the President left and the parents as well as the children went into their buses in the presence of the media.

“There was no time after the meeting when envelopes were distributed or money was given.

“The President is not part of it and will never do anything to bribe anybody. This issue is not about money. We are talking about human lives here.

“The allegation is completely wild. What they are claiming is unknown to the President. Whoever is claiming it should prove it because no such thing happened.

“The commitment of the President is to get the girls back safely. It is not about bribing anybody. This is a very serious matter and we will like to appeal to those who want to play politics with it, using all kinds of tricks to ridicule the efforts of the administration, to always appeal to their individual conscience and realize that what we are dealing with here is a very serious matter and not a matter of mischief.”

Meanwhile, some residents of Maiduguri and Chibok in Borno State are apprehensive that Boko Haram may have started deploying the over 200 schoolgirls it abducted in April 14 as suicide bombers.

News that some girls aged between 15 and 19 (the age bracket of the abducted female pupils) were involved in suicide bombings in Kano on Sunday and Monday raised the fears of the residents.

The residents said on Tuesday that they believed that some of the schoolgirls who might have been indoctrinated by the sect would not hesitate to become Boko Haram suicide bombers.

They argued that such was possible considering the fact that the girls had stayed too long in Boko Haram captivity.

“It is a pity that the girls have been allowed to spend over 100 days with the insurgents and without doubt, those involved in the series of bombings in Kano are some of our girls,” one them who gave her name as Deborah Mackson, told journalists in Maiduguri.

She added, “Boko Haram has now found use for these innocent girls. They use them as bomb couriers and they are gradually eliminating them with many other Nigerians.

“Initially, it was unclear why the girls were abducted but now, we can see that the insurgents mapped out their strategies from day one to get bomb couriers and continue to kill all of us.”

Another Maiduguri resident, who did not want her name in print, said, “It is clear that the girls are no longer in Sambisa Forest. They have been scattered across the country ready to detonate bombs and kill other Nigerians. It is a pity that the Nigerian government is still selling lies to us that they know where they are.”

She called on the government to “go after the insurgents with the full might of its military, knowing that these girls have been indoctrinated and therefore are as dangerous as the sect members.”

The resident stated that what the nation needed now was to start seeing the girls as lost.

Some of the people of Chibok, who spoke to our correspondent, said the news of the girl suicide bombers had caused them more sorrow.

One of them said, “We would have loved to believe that these girls are not our girls but it is hard to just waive the fact that they might be our girls aside.

“As a people of faith, we pray and wish that one day our daughters would reunite with us but we are still in sorrow and our heads tell us that our wish may be difficult.”

When contacted, the Borno State Acting Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Mohammed Bulama, said it was too early for anyone to conclude that the abducted girls were use to bomb Kano.

Bulama said, “It is a mere conjecture for now. While the terrorists are capable of adopting all manner of desperate measures, we have to wait for credible intelligence before we can rush to conclusions.

He said that the state government remained “hopeful that the security agencies will take measures that will not only bring back all our girls safe and alive, but will curtail the Boko Haram insurgency and bring the suffering of our people to an end soon.”