TheCable

Tukur Buratai, chief of army staff, has rekindled the hope of Nigerians on the rescue of the Chibok school girls abducted by Boko Haram insurgents on April 14 2014.

Buratai gave the assurance while fielding questions from reporters during the chief of army staff third quarter conference held at the army headquarters in Abuja on Monday.

He said the safe return of the girls remained a priority, adding that there were strong indications that the girls were still held within the fringes of the Sambisa forest.

He explained that though their exact location in the forest was yet to be ascertained, the military was mindful of their safety in the bid to secure their release.

“The issue of the Chibok girls is very crucial, we are making all efforts to clear the terrorists and after clearing them, we will rescue the Chibok girls in one piece,” he said.

“I believe that the girls must be somewhere within the general area of the forest, but we are not yet sure exactly where they are.

“As soon as this is confirmed, we will attempt to see what we can do to bring them back in one piece, it is very crucial because their safety is very important.

“They could be somewhere else, so we are taking this issue in piecemeal so that we are sure of where we are and how we are going about it and we believe that we can find a solution to it very soon.

“It (rescue) is not issue of the army alone, it is a collective issue, the air force is there, also working very hard; the department of state service is also working very hard on this issue; our main concern is to provide the ground support to ensure that we do it very well.

“By and large there is progress.’’

Describing Abubakar Shekau’s latest message “another desperate move by the group to find relevance”, Buratai pledged that the military would continue to work within the mandate of President Muhammadu Buhari that insurgency be crushed in three months

“I think the new Boko Haram leader, in the latest audio is just trying to sound relevant; but as far as I am concerned, he is irrelevant in the scheme of things, he is irrelevant to me,” he said.

“Have you seen any of them coming out apart from the suicide bombings? You can see the number of terrorists that are escaping from their camps; he is just making noise to remain relevant.”

On Sunday’s bomb attacks in Maiduguri, the army chief urged residents of the area to remain calm as measures were being taken to forestall re-occurrence.

He said the bomb attack had provided clues of the remaining areas the insurgents were operating from in the state.

“Sunday’s bomb blast will be among those that will be the last, you can be counting them, it has opened up another window where we can now focus where these attacks are coming from,” he said.

“It will not be possible for them to penetrate other areas; for now we have knocked them off areas along from Yobe and some parts of Borno.

“Immediately this incident happened yesterday, I gave directive and we will comb that area thoroughly to identify where they are operating from.”