Teenage girl rescued from Boko Haram visits President Buhari

Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari (centre) flanked by Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima (right) and Chief of Staff for the Kaduna State Governor Hadiza Bala Usman (right) carries Amina Ali's four-month-old baby on her arrival at the presidency in Abuja, on Thursday. Amina, who is the first of 219 abducted Chibok schoolgirls to be found after more than two years in Boko Haram captivity, met Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, with hopes raised more of the girls can be freed. [PHOTO: AFP]

Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday met the teenage girl rescued from Boko Haram two years ago.

Giving hope to many, Buhari said he would make it a priority that Amina Ali, who showed Buhari her four-month old baby, can go back to school.

“Nobody in Nigeria should be put through the brutality of forced marriage, every girl has a right to education and their choice of life,” he said. “Amina must be able go back to school.”

Amina was among more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped. Soldiers working with a vigilante group found Amina Ali Darsha Nkeki on Tuesday near Damboa, south of Maiduguri in the remote north where Boko Haram has waged a seven-year insurgency to set up an Islamic State.

Officials confirmed she was one of 219 girls abducted from the government school in Chibok in April 2014.

“Amina’s rescue gives us new hope and offers a unique opportunity to vital information,” Buhari said during a meeting with the teenager, her mother and officials after a presidential jet had flown her to Abuja.

Meanwhile, the army says a second schoolgirl from the more than 200 seized in the Nigerian town of Chibok has been found.

Cast doubt

But a spokesman for the Chibok girls’ parents has cast doubt on the claims, saying the girl’s name is not on the families’ list of those missing. An army spokesman said she was among a group of 97 women and children rescued by troops in the north-east.

Islamist militant group Boko Haram has abducted thousands of other girls in recent years, rights groups estimate.

This comes two days after the rescue of the first Chibok girl.

The army has previously made mistakes in its statements about the rescue of the Chibok girls - in its initial statement after the first girl was found, it used the wrong name.

In all, 218 girls remain missing after their abduction by the Boko Haram Islamist group from Chibok Secondary School in north-eastern Nigeria in 2014.

The first rescued girl told a Chibok community leader that six of the kidnapped girls had died, but the rest were still in the Sambisa forest where she was found.

In a statement, Col Usman said: “We are glad to state that among those rescued is a girl believed to be one of the Chibok Government (Girls) Secondary School girls that were abducted on 14 April 2014 by the Boko Haram terrorists.” He said she was the daughter of a pastor.

But the head of the group representing the Chibok girls’ parents said their own records did not match up with the details given by the army.

Yakubu Nkeki said there were four priests among the parents but none with the surname given by the army. Furthermore, the army said she comes from Madagali in Adamawa State, but Nkeki said all the abducted girls were from Borno State.

If the Nigerian army’s information about the class the girl was in is correct, she would have been aged between 12 or 13 at the time of her abduction.

Most of the girls abducted were several years older and about to sit their school-leaving examinations.

The confusion over the girl’s identity may be down to the difficulty in getting confirmation from her parents.

Many of the parents of the Chibok girls are spread out, living in remote areas with little access to the internet, he adds.

Col Usman said the 97 women and girls were found on Thursday in the Demboa area of Bo