Over a year ago, the girls were abducted from their boarding school in Borno State and despite the recent success of the Nigerian Army in overrunning Boko Haram camps, they have not been found. Over the last month, the Nigerian military has rescued 293 ladies comprising 200 girls and 93 women in one raid, then freed another 160 women and children comprising 60 women and 100 children, bringing the total to 453.
Despite the release of the abducted females, there is still no sign of the Chibok girls and Governor Shettima, said it could be because they are being held in bunkers inside the Sambisa Forest. He has asked the Nigerian military, which is currently combing the forest to not only to fish out members of the sect but to also liberate the 200 girls.
Speaking in Abuja, while presenting a paper at a two-day post election conference on security and governance, organised by the Savanna Centre, established by former permanent representative to the United Nations, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, Governor Shettima blamed past complacency. He added that Boko Haram, having operated in the large expansive forest for so many years unchallenged, were able to build a bunker, large enough to accommodate many people in the area.
Governor Shettima said: “We are suspecting that the Chibok girls are living with the insurgents in bunkers. I think the military must carry out their operations beyond the surface earth as they are also known to have dug tunnels to enable them move from house to house.
"Having been left unchallenged for such a long time, such possibility cannot be ruled out which poses serious obstacles within the forest. The insurgents used their bases in the Sambisa Forest to launch deadly attacks and make quick retreats, which enabled them capture and take over control of all the local government areas bordering Nigeria with Cameroon, Chad and Niger, thus effectively cutting off the three neighbouring countries, thereby declaring what they assumed was their independent caliphate.”
He added that unless Sambisa Forest was completely and effectively rid of the terrorists by the military, any reconstruction and rehabilitation carried out in the northeast region would turn out to be an exercise in futility. Governor Shettima pointed out that at several stages the Borno State government had intervened to reconstruct destroyed schools, health centres, homes, markets and so on, only for the insurgents to attack and destroy them again.
Also, the governor disclosed that Boko Haram killed over 300,000 persons in the region, contrary to the 13,000 dead figure being bandied by the media. He added that Borno State alone, has so far lost over 70,000 people during the six-year old insurgency.
Among other things, the governor attributed the success of Boko Haram in the northeast to what he called the underfunding of the military. Governor Shettima accused President Goodluck Jonathan of abandoning the region to its fate, preferring to spend the money he would have spent on the maintenance of security in the area on frivolities, especially the entertainment industry.
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