Nigeria Leader Cancels Visit To Girls' Village

Nigeria's president has cancelled a planned visit to the village from which nearly 300 girls were kidnapped due to security fears.

The visit was to be Goodluck Jonathan's first visit to Chibok, the village from where 276 schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram rebels a month ago - a number have since escaped.

"The president was planning to go but security advised otherwise on the visit," said the source of the last-minute decision to cancel.

The president is instead flying direct to Paris

Instead, Mr Jonathan is flying direct from the capital, Abuja, to Paris for a regional summit to discuss Boko Haram and wider security issues.

The cancellation of the visit to Chibok is likely to disappoint relatives of the girls who have already expressed their anger at the government's slow response to the crisis and the armed forces' failure to rescue the girls.

A Chibok community leader had said that, although residents had been angry at his government's slow response to the girls' plight, they did not hold it against the president and considered the visit "better late than never".

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau

Boko Haram's leader last week threatened in a video to sell the girls into slavery unless the government freed rebels being held - the president said he would not do so.

A total of 223 are still missing and the group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, claimed in a video released this week that some 130 had now converted to Islam.

A social media campaign has galvanised international pressure on Nigeria to mount a rescue operation with Britain, the US, France and Israel all sending teams and equipment to help.

There has been national outrage at the kidnappings

But the president's cancellation is expected to draw further criticism of the government's handling of the crisis.

The US has been critical of Nigeria's "slow" response to the kidnapping, saying resolving the crisis was not "one of the highest priorities of the US government".

Debo Adeniran from a pressure group called the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, said he was "shocked and disappointed" at the cancellation of the visit and it sent a troubling message.

Enoch Mark, whose daughter is among those missing

"If, as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, he is afraid to visit Chibok because of security fears, he is simply telling the hapless people in the northeast that he cannot protect them and they should resign to their fate," he said.

"He is also telling the soldiers fighting Boko Haram elements in the region that they are on their own," he added, calling for the president to resign.

The cancellation would hit already low morale of troops fighting the insurgency in the northeast, he added.

The army is taking part in the search for the girls

"For the abducted girls, they can now see clearly that the person they call their president is a misfit, lilly-livered and lacks any moral claim to leadership. Everybody is disappointed," he said.

 

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