The Nigerian Air Force has dismissed the news that it has located the position of the missing Chibok girls abducted by members of the Boko Haram terrorist group.
The Boko Haram terrorists abducted the girls in April 2014 from their school in Chibok, Borno State.
Some media outlets (The Eagle Online not inclusive) had on Friday and Saturday quoted the Director of Public Relations of the Nigerian Air Force, Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa, as saying the NAF has located the position of the Chibok girls.
However, in a statement late on Saturday, Famuyiwa said this was far from the truth.
He said: “Please let it be known that this statement is a misrepresentation of the interview that the NAF Director of Public Relations gave the Channels Television that was aired on Friday 12 February 2016.
“The NAF is hereby making it categorically clear that in the said interview the Director made mention of the NAF’s ability to identify POSSIBLE LOCATION that the girls might be in.
“Hence, the NAF wishes to categorically state that it has at no time identified the specific location of the Chibok girls. However, it is working round the clock with surveillance aircraft covering the over 157,000 km2 area of the North East in order to identify the position of not only the Chibok girls but other Nigerians that might have been held captives.
“Towards the realization of this goal, the NAF has from January 2016 till date using aircraft, ISR platforms such as ATR-42, B-350 and CH-3 UAV flown surveillance missions totaling over 346 hours consuming about 85,887 litres of Jet A-1 and 3,830 litres of Mogas costing N15,337,862:50 and $19,150:00 respectively.
“Therefore, whilst the specific position of the Chibok girls is not yet ascertained by the NAF, we have not folded our arms on the surveillance flights and will continue to use these flights to degrade the capacity of the terrorists and as soon as possible locate the position of the Chibok girls and other Nigerians that are under captivity.”
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