The Nigeria government has insisted it has no record of any offer of assistance from the Australian government in the rescue of the abducted Chibok girls.
Apparently responding to Australia’s insistence on Thursday, June 12 that it offered to deploy special forces to assist in the rescue of the girls but the Nigerian government failed to take up the offer till date, the Director, Public Relations, Ministry of Information, Amedu Ogbole-Ode, said the Australian government should provide documentary proof if they insist that they made such an offer.
Also lending voice to the matter, the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency, Mr. Mike Omeri, on Friday insisted that the Australian government had not made any offer to rescue the Chibok schoolgirls.
The controversy surrounding the offer of assistance dates back to the official announcement made on May 20 by the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, in an interview he granted to 2GB, a Sydney’s premier talk radio station where he said they had offered their support to Nigeria through their Ambassador for Counter-terrorism and also their High Commissioner in Abuja, John Richardson while adding that Nigeria was yet to accept the offer.
Again, on June 4, there were reports that the Australian authorities offered to deploy the country’s special forces to help Nigerian government in the Chibok girls find-and-rescue operation.
According to the report, Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop while speaking with Sky News, said they had not received any clear response from Nigeria to their offer yet.
However, one of the correspondents of PUNCH in Abuja disclosed that what happened was an informal offer of a general kind.
He said, “There was no specific offer from the Australian government. If a country is making an offer to you, it would be specific and through the normal diplomatic channel.
The reference was apparently made to the “terrorist war” in Afghanistan, Premium Times reports.
Over 200 girls were abducted by Boko Haram on April 14 in Chibok, Borno State. Following their abduction, many activists took to the streets to protest. The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau later released videos, which showed the girls have been converted to Islam. Many Foreign countries offered to help Nigeria bring back the girls from their captors. World powers like UK, France and USA have been working in collaboration with the Nigerian government to find the missing girls.
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