By Our Correspondent
Minister of Defence, Mansur Muhammad Dan-Ali, was yesterday quoted to have said that two local government areas in the North-east are still under insurgents’ control.
However, a statement issued yesterday by the Minister’s Public Relations Officer, Col. Tukur Gusau, said: “The attention of the Ministry of Defence was drawn to an online report credited to the Honourable Minister of Defence Mansur Muhammad Dan-Ali that two local governments in the North-east are still under Boko Haram occupation and that Chibok girls are being used as suicide bombers.
“For the avoidance of doubt, it is important to state here that the Honourable Minister, as a guest in the studios of Voice of America, spoke in Hausa language and while giving appraisal of the success recorded by the gallant Armed Forces, under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, the Honourable Minister said hitherto over 60 local governments were under the occupation of Boko Haram in the North-east, but now only about two were having some remnants of Boko Haram activities, but not under the complete occupation of the terrorists.”
Continuing, it said: “On the issue of Chibok Girls the Honourable Minister was not referring to the girls abducted on 14 April 2014 from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, rather he was referring to the other girls abducted by the terrorists from Chibok local government and its environs.”
