#BringBackOurGirls: "Please Save Our Lives" - Chibok Girls Beg President Jonathan In New Video

According to reports in the UK Telegraph newspaper, the kidnapped female students of the Government Girls Secondary school, Chibok, Borno State, have sent a passionate appeal to Nigeria's president Goodluck Jonathan, to do everything possible to save their lives and rescue them from their captors, the Boko Haram sect.

The report has it that a new video was sent to President Jonathan and in it, the girls were seen pleading with him to do everything possible to help them.

The Telegraph also reported that the sect sent the video to the President by an  intermediary, a Nigerian journalist, Ahmad Salika, in a bid to change the mind of Jonathan concerning his rejection of the original deal to swap the school girls for Boko Haram prisoners.

The journalist, before he fled Nigeria two years ago, was working with Daily Trust newspaper and was an authority on Boko Haram issues and had access to the leader of the sect, Abubakar Shekau.
He had to run away from the country when he was branded a member of the sect and his life and that of his family threatened.

But Salika was flown back into the country some weeks back and has been acting as an intermediary between the government and the insurgents. He it was who delivered the video to the president.

Ahmad Salkida who was reported to have told President Goodluck Jonathan that the use of force will not bring back the abducted girls alive from the insurgent’s den, obtained the video as a way of proving to Jonathan’s office that he had authentic lines of communication to Boko Haram’s leaders.

The Telegraph also added that when the federal government expressed doubts over Salkida's claims that he had direct acces to the sect leader and asked him for a proof, he brought the tape to the Presidency as proof.

A Presidency source allegedly told the Telegraph thus:

The government said to the intermediary to prove himself to show whether he was capable of brokering a deal or not, and insisted that he should obtain proof of life of the hostages.

So during his talks with the insurgents, he obtained a DVD which had clips of girls being interviewed by members of the group, in which they asked President Jonathan to do a prisoner swap to get them freed.

That DVD was shown to the government, and a deal was arranged so that the girls would have been released a week ago on Monday, but at the last minute the government backed out.

- Pulse NG

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