Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, has disclosed how a planned U.S.-assisted operation to rescue the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 was aborted due to suspected leaks within the Nigerian military.
Speaking during an appearance on Arise TV on Tuesday, Akinyemi revealed that the rescue plan, initiated at the invitation of the Jonathan administration, involved close collaboration between American forces and Nigerian troops.
He said: "When the Chibok girls were picked up by the Boko Haram, the Americans came in quietly at the invitation of the Jonathan administration, and in collaboration with the Nigerian troops.
"They discovered the camp where the girls where being kept. And they said, all right, we will throw gas into those camps, and while everybody is sleeping, including the Boko Haram, we'll go in with the Nigerian troops and take out the girls."
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However, the plan collapsed when reconnaissance aircraft discovered Boko Haram fighters wearing masks at the camp, a clear indication that the militants had been tipped off.
Akinyemi said: "When the Americans sent the reconnaissance aircraft over the camp, what did they find? Boko Haram militia were wearing masks, which means somebody within the Nigerian army had leaked to Boko Haram what the plan was.
"The Americans pulled out. They were not going to subject their troops to this."
He added that the incident exposed the urgent need to identify and remove individuals within the Nigerian military sympathetic to Boko Haram or the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
"So we must clean out from within the Nigerian troops people who are sympathetic towards Boko Haram or ISWAP or whatever it is," he said.
The Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping, which occurred on April 14, 2014, saw more than 250 girls abducted from a school in Borno State.
In a video released by then-Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau on May 5, 2014, he threatened to sell the girls as "slaves in the market", demanding the release of detained Boko Haram members across several Nigerian states as a condition for their freedom.
