Rescued Chibok schoolgirl to meet Nigeria’s Buhari – governor

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – Amina Ali, the first of 219 Chibok schoolgirls to be found after more than two years held captive by Boko Haram, is to meet Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, the governor of Borno state said on Thursday.

Kashim Shettima told reporters Ali, who was discovered by civilian vigilantes and soldiers on Tuesday, would be flown from the state capital, Maiduguri, to Abuja on Thursday afternoon.

The military said Ali was brought to Maiduguri by air force helicopter from an army base in Damboa 90 kilometres (56 miles) away with her four-month-old baby and a man she said was her husband.

“Prior to that they were examined at (an) air force medical facility and were found to be stable and normal blood pressure was observed,” army spokesman Colonel Sani Usman said in a statement late Wednesday.

Senior officers commanding the counter-insurgency against Boko Haram then handed her over to the care of Shettima at the state government headquarters.

Photographs issued by the military showed her meeting Shettima with the baby, Safiya, in her arms and apparently receiving treatment from medics.

She appeared tired and thin while in one image her purported husband, identified by the military as “suspected Boko Haram terrorist” Mohammed Hayatu, cradled the infant on a hospital bed.

Usman said Hayatu was “undergoing further investigation at (the) Joint Intelligence Centre” and was being “well-treated”.

Boko Haram seized 276 students from the Government Girls Secondary School in the remote Borno town of Chibok on the evening of April 14, 2014.

Fifty-seven managed to escape in the immediate aftermath but Amina, who was 17 when she was kidnapped, and 218 of her classmates had been held ever since.

The teenager was reported as telling family and community leaders most of the abducted girls still being held were in the Sambisa Forest area of Borno but that six had died.

The military has been conducting operations against the Islamists in the former game reserve for several weeks. It has long been known to be a Boko Haram stronghold containing militant camps. – Rappler.com