Shettima to Jonathan: Explain why you hid Sabo panel report on Chibok girls

Rather than making spurious allegations against Governor Kashim Shettima on controversies surrounding abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls, media aides of former President Goodluck Jonathan should ask him why he deliberately concealed the report of a Presidential Fact-Finding Committee he constituted and inaugurated in 2014 to probe the affair, Borno State Commissioner for Education Musa Inuwa Kubo said in a statement yesterday. Kubo, who was the Education Commissioner during the abduction saga, said Jonathan constituted the panel on Tuesday, May 6, 2014 and that the former president also received its report of findings on Friday, June 20, 2014.

Kubo, who was amongst those interrogated by the committee, spoke in response to a statement issued by Ikechukwu Eze, media aide to President Jonathan on Friday night, in which Eze challenged Shettima to tell Nigerians whatever he knew regarding the April 14, 2014 abduction of over 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram after attacks on Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State. He also said there was never a time the Principal of Government Secondary School, Chibok was considered appointment as commissioner or any other post. He described the claim by Jonathan’s media team as irresponsible mischief. 

“For the purpose of records, Eze and his colleagues are pointing at the wrong direction. They should ask former President Goodluck Jonathan why he deliberately refused to make public the report of a committee he constituted, inaugurated and received their findings on facts surrounding the Chibok abduction and who is to blame for it. To refresh their minds, on Tuesday, the 6th of May, 2014, President Jonathan inaugurated a multi-agency/stakeholder fact-finding committee under the chairmanship of Brig. General Ibrahim Sabo [retd.], a one-time Director of Military Intelligence who was at the time the Chief Security Officer at PDP National headquarters. The committee’s secretary was Kingsley Osadolor, who was special assistant to then Information Minister and Acting Defence Minister Labaran Maku.