Former President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday said the claim of a former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, that he refused international help with the rescue of the kidnapped Chibok girls was untrue.
Cameron, had, in his new book, ‘For the Record’, accused Jonathan and the Nigerian Government, which Jonathan then headed, of corruption and rejecting the help of the British Government in rescuing the Chibok schoolgirls, who were kidnapped on April 14, 2014.
The former president in his response said it was quite sad that Cameron would say such, adding that nothing of such ever occurred.
He stated that as the then President of Nigeria, he not only wrote letters to Cameron, but also wrote to the then United States President, Mr. Barrack Obama, and the then French President, Mr. François Hollande, as well as the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr.Benjamin Netanyahu, appealing to them for help in rescuing the Chibok girls.
He said, “How could I write to appeal for help and then reject the very thing I appealed for?
“Also, history contradicts Mr Cameron. On March 8, 2012, when the same Boko Haram-linked terrorists abducted a British expatriate named Chris McManus, along with an Italian hostage Franco Lamolinara, in Sokoto, I, as Nigerian President, personally authorised rescue effort by members of the British Military Special Boat Service supported by officers and men of the Nigerian Army, to free the abducted men.”
He added, “So having set a precedent like that, why would I reject British help in rescuing the Chibok Girls, if it was offered?
“I also authorised the secret deployment of troops from the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel as a result of the Chibok incident, so how Mr. Cameron could say this with a straight face beats me.
“Moreover, on March 8, 2017, the British Government of former Prime Minister, Theresa May, in a widely circulated press statement, debunked this allegation and said there was no truth in it after Mr. Cameron had made similar statements to the Observer of the United Kingdom.”
Jonathan said that the former UK Prime Minister is against hm because he signed the Anti-Same Sex Marriage Bill into law.
He said this while reacting to claims by Cameron that he (Jonathan) prevented UK troops from rescuing some of the 276 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram from Chibok, Borno State.
Cameron, in his recently published memoir titled, ‘For the Record’, had claimed that a team of UK soldiers had located some of the Chibok girls but “Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, seemed to be asleep at the wheel. When he eventually made a statement, it was to accuse the campaigners of politicising the tragedy. And absolutely crucially, when we offered to help rescue the girls we had located, he refused.”
In his response, however, Jonathan described the former UK leader’s claims as a tissue of lies.
Jonathan said as President of Nigeria at that time, he came under almost unbearable pressure from the Cameron administration to pass legislation supporting LGBTQ Same Sex marriage in Nigeria.
The former President said his conscience could not stomach that, because as President of Nigeria, he swore on the Bible to advance Nigeria’s interests, and not the interest of the United Kingdom or any foreign power.
He said, “As such, on Monday, January 13, 2014, I signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill into law after the bill had been passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Nigeria’s parliament, in line with the wishes of the Nigerian people.
“This happened shortly after a study of 39 nations around the world by the US Pew Research Centre came up with a finding which indicated that 98 per cent of Nigerians were opposed to the idea of gay marriage.
“Immediately after I took this patriotic action, my government came under almost unbearable pressure from Mr. Cameron, who reached me through envoys, and made subtle and not so subtle threats against me and my government.”
He said meetings were held at the White House and at the Portcullis House in Parliament UK, with the then Nigerian opposition, All Progressives Congress, to disparage him, after he had signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill into law.
On the allegation of corruption, Jonathan said Transparency International, which is globally acknowledged as the adjudicator of who is corrupt and who is not, stated that Nigeria made great improvements in the fight against corruption.
Punch
