Chibok Girls
The British government claimed that revealing details of what it found about the whereabouts of the abducted girls would clearly damage its relationship with Nigeria and other allies.
This revelation came after a UK-based group, Security in Africa, through its founder, Ben Oguntala, wrote the British Ministry of Defence to request for information on the Chibok girls.
“The information was sent on January 30 this year and the UK government has 20 days to comply. They do have a defence of national security and that would prevent them from disclosing the information. Let’s hope they don’t. If they rely on national security defence, we can raise the matter with the Information Commissioner’s office to determine if their claim of national security is reasonable,” Oguntala told our correspondent while requesting for the information.
The SIA founder, who had earlier in January this year said it was setting up a taskforce to go to Sambisa Forest to secure the release of the abducted schoolgirls, requested from the UK government to know the “results and reports of the British Armed Forces, the details of where they searched and the results of their findings.
“We also seek to have the details of the technology, technique or methodology used in the search and the consequential results,” he wrote in his request letter.
But, in a letter from the MOD’s Permanent Joint Headquarters in Middlesex, dated February 25, a copy of which was made available to our correspondent, the British government said some of the information requested by Oguntala “falls entirely within the scope of the qualified exemption provided for at section 27 (International Relations) of the FOIA and has been withheld.”
Credit: www.ajetun.com/
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