Release of Daptchi school girls: FG empowering terrorists by paying ransom - rights activist

As mixed reactions trail the release of the abducted 110 Daptchi school girls, a human rights activist and social crusader, Comrade Paul Njoku, has accused the Federal Government of empowering terrorists by paying ransom to secure freedom for victims.

Njoku who spoke with newsmen yesterday in Umuahia after the abducted school girls were released said "there was more than meets the eye in the whole abduction saga".

He faulted the federal government's approach of negotiating with terrorists, and said "President Muhammadu Buhari should be ready to tell Nigerians how much he paid the abductors" to secure freedom for the girls.

Njoku said he was made to believe that government paid ransom before the girls were released because most Boko Haram victims who later regained their freedom in the past did so after huge ransoms were paid like in the case of Chibok girls.

Njoku insisted that payment of ransom to terrorists would only embolden them and  encourage more abductions instead of bringing any solution.

According to him, it is more worrisome when some top commanders of Boko Haram already in military/ police  custody were released in exchange of abducted victims .

He also said the entire saga looked like " a stage managed operation to score a political point", wondering how the abductors who brought back the victims on broad day light could disappear without a trace. 

The right activist also said the security agencies were yet to come clean of the claims by the Amnesty International that both the Army and Police hierarchies got information about the abduction before the incident.

" I am very suspicious of the entire thing. A lot of questions have been raised. How be it the girls were released less than a week a Minister said they would be freed? Again, how was it that there was no army or police check point to pin down the abductors when they returned the girls on a broad day light?.

" The whole thing looks like some people want to deplete our national treasury in the name of ransom to secure release for the abducted school girls. It is a danger signal because it amounts to encouraging more kidnappings".

He called on the international community to investigate the circumstances surrounding the abduction and release of the Daptchi school girls as well as Chibok girls for possible clue to the sponsors of Boko Haram.