Defence Headquarters Disputes Boko Haram’s New Video

•  Promises to issue update after investigation

Iyobosa Uwugiaren in Abuja

The Defence Headquarters on Sunday said it was examining the latest video from terrorist group Boko Haram purporting to show some of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls.

The Abubakar Shekau faction of the terrorist group on Sunday released a new video showing the abducted Chibok girls and claiming that some of them were killed by air strikes launched by the Nigerian Air Force on their locations.

The video showed a disguised armed man standing in front of several girls who, he claimed, were the over 200 girls abducted from their school hostel at Government Secondary School, Chibok, in 2014.

The man said the video was released to send a message to the parents of the girls to beg the Nigerian government to release Boko Haram members in various detention centres in exchange for the girls.

The man claimed that about 40 of the girls were already married, while some were dead.

One of the girls, Maida Yakubu, who spoke in both Hausa and her native language asked parents to “be patient and beg the government to release their people, so that we will also be released”.

But in press statement on Sunday by the Director Defence Information, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar, the army disclosed that the military is examining the video clip to verify its authenticity.

“Currently we are studying the video clips to verify its authenticity and analysing the comments of the speakers in the video especially the terrorist member and the girl that spoke in mother tongue”, the Defence spokesman stated.

General Rabe also disputed allegations in the video that some of the kidnapped girls were hit by an airstrike.

According to him: “It is extremely difficult and rare to hit innocent people during airstrike because the operation is done through precision attack on identified and registered targets and locations.

‘’The Precision Airstrike is very effective at taking out targeted enemies because it is not a random operation. We are nevertheless studying the video clips to examine if the victims died from other causes rather from the allegation of airstrike.’’

PRNigeria, the public relation outfit of the defence headquarters gathered that the Nigerian Airforce through its Component in Operation Lafiya Dole was focusing on sustaining air operations and providing support to ground troops of the Armed Forces’ strive to rid Nigeria of the Boko Haram insurgency.

Further details later