Reasons Jonathan Rejected Hare-brained Offer From Britain To Rescue Chibok Girls
The Oasis Reporters
March 07, 2017
A picture taken from a video obtained in March 2012 soon reached former President Goodluck Jonathan from the National Security Adviser, NSA, Lt. Gen. Owoeye Azazi . The photo disturbed the then President. The Mauritanian agency ANI published the photo reportedly showing German engineer Edgar Fritz Raupach, his hands tied behind his back, surrounded by gunmen.
Raupach was kidnapped in Nigeria in January, purportedly by Al Qaeda’s north African branch, and was killed by his captors on May 31, 2012 during a military raid in the northern city of Kano ironically put in place to rescue him alive .
Not too long after, news of a fresh kidnapping emerged in the country, with Italy’s foreign ministry and Nigerian authorities confirming the abduction of an Italian engineer in Kwara State, located in north central Nigeria.
Then several hundred soldiers were involved along with trucks and armoured vehicles in the bid to rescue him.
The end result was this sad news :
“The German abducted in January has been killed by his abductors early this morning,” a military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Following intelligence reports, men of (a military task force) raided a hideout where he was being held by his abductors.” A shootout occurred and the abductors also detonated explosives, said the official.
“They were subdued, but realising that it was the end for them, they killed the hostage,” the official said.
Another military source and a police source confirmed Edgar Raupach’s death. The victim was said to have been shot and stabbed by his captors.
The sources also said a number of the abductors had been killed in the raid, with different accounts putting the figure between two and five.
The death of Raupach marked the second such incident in recent months in Nigeria
There was another failed bid to rescue an Italian and a British hostage in same month . This was a hare-brained rescue attempt undertaken by British special terrorism squad who had assured Mr. Jonathan that they were amongst the best in the world. Then they neglected to inform the Italians because according to the British, to make it highly secretive.
Their captors killed them before Nigerian forces could rescue them in a joint operation with the British security forces.
The Italian government was livid with rage and this embarrassed not only Mr. Jonathan, but No. 10 Downing Street, seat of the British prime minister.
The kidnapped and killed despite the initial secret ransom the Italians had paid, was an engineer with the Italian building and civil engineering firm Borini Prono.
Unidentified armed men were said to have snatched the engineer as he inspected road-draining works in the city of Ilorin in May 2012.
All those bungled attempts weighed heavily on the administration of Goodluck Jonathan when he reportedly rejected the offer of British armed forces to help in rescuing the abducted Chibok girls.
According to the Observer, Britain was ready to rescue the Chibok girls from the Boko Haram insurgent group after their abduction in April 2014 as Britain’s Royal Air Force was said to have conducted air reconnaissance over Northern Nigeria for several months in a mission named Operation Turus.
It revealed that the Jonathan government rebuffed all offers to rescue the over 300 kidnapped schoolgirls but welcomed an aid package and assistance from the US, the UK and France in looking for the girls.
Notes from meetings between UK and Nigerian officials, also revealed that the administration shunned international offers to rescue the girls as it viewed any action to be taken against kidnapping as a “national issue”, to be handled by the security forces of Nigeria.
The British who had backed the Americans in refusing to sell arms to the government could not be wholly trusted.
“The girls were located in the first few weeks of the RAF mission. We offered to rescue them, but the Nigerian government declined,” a source involved in Operation Turus was quoted as saying.
According to the unnamed source, the girls were tracked by aircraft while they were being divided into smaller groups in the months after their kidnap.
“Nigeria’s intelligence and military services must solve the ultimate problem,” said Jonathan in a meeting with the UK’s then Africa minister, Mark Simmonds, on 15 May 2014.
A document summarising a meeting in Abuja in September 2014 between the next Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki and James Duddridge MP, former under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office, shows Operation Turus had advanced to the point where rescue options were being discussed.
In a meeting the following month between Major-General James Chiswell and Jonathan hinted at the frustration felt by those trying to prompt some action from Nigeria.
“[President] Jonathan was still focused on ‘platforms’. General Chiswell said again we could offer advice on what equipment might make sense and how weapon systems might be best deployed,” the October 2014 document stated.
The “platforms” mentioned were the serious doubts agitating the mind of President Jonathan that if the British special security forces could not rescue just a single citizen of theirs with another Italian from less than 10 kidnappers, how could he possibly trust them to rescue 300 girls from several armed Boko Haram terrorists ?
It was too hare-brained, too risky, he thought, and turned down the unworkable plan. He preferred other methods that may be time consuming but slightly safer. This has culminated in the recent release of some of the girls through a negotiated settlement by the succeeding Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Credits : ANI Mauritania, AFP, The Observer, Others
