By Ayo Ayodele
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has described the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 as a permanent scar on his administration, saying it is a wound he will carry for the rest of his life.
Jonathan spoke in Abuja on Friday at the public presentation of Scars, a book written by former Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor.
Reflecting on his years in office, the former president said his administration explored several strategies to end the Boko Haram insurgency but with little success.
“One of the major scars on my government—and it will remain on my face, as Bishop Kukah said, no plastic or cosmetic surgeon can remove it—is the issue of the Chibok girls. It is a scar I will die with,” Jonathan said.
He recalled that at one point, Boko Haram nominated former President Muhammadu Buhari to negotiate with the government on their behalf. According to him, this gave him hope that Buhari, when elected in 2015, would be able to resolve the crisis.
“I thought that after I left, within a reasonable time, General Buhari would wipe them out. But even today, Boko Haram is still there. The issue is far more complex than often portrayed,” he noted.
Jonathan stressed that the insurgency could not be explained merely by poverty or hunger, insisting that successive governments had tried different approaches. He urged the present administration to adopt new strategies, including a carrot-and-stick approach, to finally overcome the insurgency.
He added that he hoped members of the sect would one day document their own accounts, just as actors of the Nigerian Civil War did, so that Nigerians could better understand the true motives behind their actions.