Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has ordered an investigation into the kidnapping of 219 schoolgirls by Islamist jihadi group Boko Haram in April 2014 from the town of Chibok, the presidency said on Thursday.
A statement said a panel would be announced soon by the national security adviser. The decision comes after hundreds of parents and sympathisers of the schoolgirls met Mr Buhari to renew calls for their release.
The 300 or so marchers, many of them crying, trekked through Abuja carrying signs with the faces of the missing girls before being taken in buses for an audience with Mr Buhari at his official residence.
It is the first time the group has met Mr Buhari since he declared in December that the extremists were “technically” defeated, despite warnings from security analysts the war was far from over.
“Where is my daughter? I want my daughter back no matter the condition she is in,” Iyana Galan, a mother, said to AFP.
“Even if she is dead I want to see her body,” she said, choking back tears.
After the behind-closed-doors meeting, former education minister Oby Ezekwesili, who leads the BringBackOurGirls protest group, said Mr Buhari asked for more time to rescue the 219 schoolgirls.
A total of 276 teenagers were seized from their dormitories at the school in Chibok, in the northeastern state of Borno, on April 14 2014.
Fifty-seven girls managed to escape soon afterwards but the remainder are still being held and have not been seen since they appeared in a Boko Haram video message released in May 2014.
The audacious kidnapping generated headlines worldwide and laid bare the inability of Mr Buhari’s predecessor Goodluck Jonathan to tackle the insurrection.
Since 2009, at least 17,000 have been killed and about 2.6-million forced from their homes.
The BringBackOurGirls group has kept up the pressure on the government with regular demonstrations and daily vigils in the capital.
But Ms Ezekwesili said Mr Buhari told them there was no “reliable intelligence that would enable them to rescue the girls as immediately as we are demanding”.
Mr Buhari has said he is prepared to negotiate with any “credible” Boko Haram leaders for their release.
Reuters, AFP