President
Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed that he gets so worried about the abduction of
the Chibok schoolgirls, making it difficult to continue to meet with their
parents.
The
216 schoolgirls from Chibok secondary schools were kidnapped from their
hostel more than two years ago.
In
an interview with CNN’s Christine Amanpour in London, the president said he had
met twice with the families of the missing schoolgirls but said he tries to
limit his meetings with them for his own “emotional balance.”
“I
try to imagine my 14-year-old daughter missing for one to two years… a lot of
parents would rather see them in their graves than the condition they are in
now.”
“It’s
tragic,” he added.
Asked
about a video — exclusively obtained by CNN last month — that showed some of
the missing schoolgirls alive, President Buhari said he had not seen the clip
and insisted that he would not have shown it to the families even if he had
seen it.
“How
can we show it to them when we don’t know where they are?” he asked. “If we
know where they are then we can organize to secure them. If they are divided
into 5, 10 groups all over the region, there’s no way we can spontaneously and
simultaneously attack all those locations.
The important thing is to get them alive,” he
said.
CNN
reported last month that Boko Haram had made ransom demands for their release.
However,
the president said that his administration is still trying to establish
bonafide Boko Haram leadership before entering into talks with them.
“When
we identify it, we are prepared to talk to them. We can’t just talk to whoever
gets a video clip,” he said.
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Politics