No form of ransom paid for release of 82 Chibok girls, Lai Mohammed, counters BBC’s report .
Lai
Mohammed, the minister of information and culture, has said that the
federal government did not pay €2m ransom to secure the release of 82
Chibok girls. A BBC report had recently quoted a source as saying that
€2m was paid to the Boko Haram insurgent group during the course of
negotiation. .
“Paying a ransom as
well as swapping prisoners was a sticking point that almost unravelled
the whole deal,” said the source. “It should have happened sooner, but
the president was hesitating about freeing the five – and especially
about the money.” .
But Mohammed told
PUNCH on Saturday that only five Boko Haram commanders were exchanged
for the Chibok girls. His denial came on a day when 82 Chibok girls were
reunited with their parents and 21 of their colleagues who were freed
in October 2016. .
The minister said:
“I emphatically deny on behalf of the Federal Government that any form
of ransom was paid in exchange for the release of the 82 Chibok girls.
“Apart from the five Boko Haram commanders, the exchange of which we had
already made public, no other concession was made. .
Any
other thing to the contrary is absolutely false.” Out of the 276 girls
abducted in April 2014 from their school in Chibok, Borno state, 113
girls are yet to be released.