Parents of the kidnapped schoolgirls refuse to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan

Parents and schoolmates of the 219 schoolgirls held captive by Boko Haram extremists refused at the last minute Tuesday to meet with Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan, who accused activists of "playing politics."

"It now appears that our fight to get the girls of Chibok back is not only a fight against a terrorist insurgency, but also against a political opposition," Jonathan said in a statement.
The mass abduction April 15, exactly three months ago, has been plagued by politics from the start. First lady Patience Jonathan charged the kidnappings never occurred and were being fabricated by her husband's enemies to damage his image.

She also had two leading activists briefly arrested, and relations between the government, security forces and the #BringBackOurGirls movement have been tense ever since.
At one point in May when the activists tried to stage a peaceful march to present their demands to Jonathan, they were blocked by soldiers and police.

On Tuesday, security agents locked the doors to the National Assembly, preventing the campaigners from attending a scheduled meeting with the Senate president, said Rotimi Olawale, a spokeswoman for the campaign.

It seems the campaigners then persuaded the parents and girls not to meet with the president, who has faced international condemnation for his slow response to mount a campaign to rescue the girls.
"My priority is not politics. My priority is the return of these girls," Jonathan's statement said. He accused the Nigerian chapter of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign of "psychological terrorism ... playing politics with the situation and the grief of the parents and the girls. They should be ashamed of their actions."

Jonathan has never met with the parents or the escaped girls, though they have been asking to meet with him for weeks. In May, he cancelled without explanation a trip to Chibok, the remote northeast town where the girls were kidnapped.

Politics probably played a part in that cancellation since Chibok is in the northeastern state of Borno, which is governed by an opposition politician very critical of Jonathan.
On Monday, Nigeria's leader promised Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai that he would meet the parents. Malala said that was the parents' wish, that they wanted the support of their president.

"I want to be clear, this government stands with complete solidarity with the girls and their parents.
We are doing everything in our power to bring back our girls," he said Tuesday after the meeting was cancelled. "As a father of girls, I stand ready to meet with the parents of our abducted children and the truly brave girls that have escaped this nightmare through the grace of God."

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Suspect arrested in Abuja bombing that killed 71

One of the masterminds of April's Nyanya Motor Park bombing that killed 71 people has been arrested, Nigerian police said.

About 130 people were hurt when a parked vehicle exploded in the bus station that was crowded with early morning commuters.

Aminu Ogwuche was extradited to Nigeria from Sudan, where he had taken refuge, police said.
Boko Haram's leader claimed responsibility for the April 14 bombing.

The Islamist militant group -- whose name means "Western education is sin" in the local Hausa language -- has bombed schools, churches and mosques; kidnapped women and children; and assassinated politicians and religious leaders.

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Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger gives opinion on why Nigeria under achieved in the 2014 FIFA World Cup

 Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has said lack of solidarity and poor administration, are the reasons why Nigeria and other African teams performed below par at the 2014 World Cup.

The Super Eagles began their tournament with a drab goalless draw against Iran, before narrowly beating Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 in the second. Although they lost 3-2 to Argentina in their final Group F game, the African champions squeezed through to the second round, where they were eliminated by France.

Wenger argued it was never a matter of the quality of the Nigerian players, but off-field problems worked against them.

“I don’t think it’s purely down to quality. I think it comes down to organizational problems before the World Cup and during the World Cup,” Wenger told Daily Mirror.

“I think what hurts football fans both in Cameroon and Nigeria – two big footballing nations – was not that their countries did not reach the quarter-finals, it was the fact that both teams had no solidarity and they had problems that were exposed all over the world before the competition and that’s the main reason,” the Arsenal manager said in probable reference to the bonus crisis that rocked both the Super Eagles and the Indomitable Lions.

“Football is difficult enough when you are united but if you are not united at that stage then you have no chance.”

The Frenchman however singled out the Desert Warriors of Algeria for praise, despite the fact they were eliminated in the second round by eventual winners Germany.

He said: “I would still like to give some credit to Algeria. They played so well and at some points they even made Germany look average, and they were the only country who could do that. I would have liked to have seen more from the African countries.”

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Video - Boko Haram release video mocking plea for kidnapped schoolgirls release

Boko Haram issued a new video Sunday mocking the social media campaign that highlighted the plight of the 223 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamists in north-east Nigeria.

In a broadcast apparently marking the girls’ third month in captivity, Abubakar Shekau, the Boko Haram leader, said they would not be freed until the government released the “army” of the group’s fighters held in Nigerian jails.

Shekau also claimed responsibility for three bombings last month and voiced support for Islamic State, the extremists who have seized much of northern Iraq.

The video served as a direct snub to Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl and women’s rights campaigner who arrived in Nigerian capital, Abuja, over the weekend to voice support for the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.

Ms Yousafzai, 17, who moved to Britain after being shot by the Taliban, met parents of the missing girls yesterday and was also expected to hold talks with Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s president.

As she did so, serious doubts emerged about the girls’ chances of ever being rescued. In briefings with The Daily Telegraph over the weekend, Western diplomats said that, despite international publicity, the efforts to find the hostages were little further on than they were in May, when Britain, America and France began to help. With neither a prisoner swap or a rescue considered likely, there was little real prospect of any “breakthrough” in the foreseeable future, they said.

One diplomat said: “It is hard to see this being resolved either by a rescue or a prisoner swap deal, although that is also true for a lot of other girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in recent months and years, who are now bush wives. What may happen is that from time to time, some may seize a chance to escape, or a deal may be done with one particular local faction that is holding some of the hostages. Over the course of a few months or years they may begin to reappear.”

The diplomats’ gloomy assessment is likely to dismay the girls’ families, whose hopes of being reunited with them have been sustained largely by the scale of the international response. On Sunday, Malala, described the girls as “sisters” and said she was going to “speak up for them until they are released”.

Diplomats say the reality is that even if the girls could be located – which is hard, given that the area being searched is “twice the size of Belgium” – it would be impossible to mount a rescue without Boko Haram killing a large number first.

National Post

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