Presidency and US slam Nigeria Defence Chief over information on location of abducted schoolgirls

The United States said, yesterday, that it does not have information to support the claim by the Nigerian military that it knows the whereabouts of the more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

The Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Alex Badeh said on Monday that the military knew the location of the schoolgirls, abducted by the Boko Haram Islamic sect on April 14.

Badeh’s claim has also reportedly incurred the wrath of the Presidency.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters, yesterday, that, “we don’t have independent information from the United States to support that statement. We, as a matter of policy and for the girls’ safety and wellbeing, would not discuss publicly this sort of information regardless.”

Five U.S. and European security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they had no credible information on the location of the girls and were skeptical that the Nigerian government knew where they were. The five officials said the United States and some European allies had provided technical intelligence, including information from spy aircraft and satellites, to Nigerian authorities, who lack such intelligence capabilities.

But the officials said that as far as they knew, technical intelligence systems had not produced precise or credible information establishing the girls’ location.

The five officials said that if the Nigerians had obtained such information from informants on the ground, it has not been shared with U.S. and allied agencies.

One impediment to finding the girls, the officials said, was that since their abduction, they had been divided into small groups. Boko Haram is also believed to be hiding them in densely forested terrain where it would be hard for modern technical intelligence systems to gather information.

Meanwhile, Chief of Defence Staff, CDS, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, has reportedly incurred the wrath of the Presidency over his claim that the military has sighted the 270 schoolgirls seized from their dormitories in Chibok, Borno State by Boko Haram terrorists last month.

President Jonathan, it was learnt last night, was unhappy with the claim by the defence chief, which he considered as a breach of military tactics capable of hindering the move to free the children, who have been in the kidnappers’ den since last month.