Chibok; School Principal, Parents deny rumour of 30 girls escaping Boko Haram

By EchoesINN Reporter 

Barely 24 hours after a seemingly ill-conceived ruse went viral that 45 of the 63 abducted women that escaped captivity of the Boko Haram had been recaptured by the insurgents, another hoax was being circulated to media houses in Nigeria that 30 of the schoolgirls abducted by the Boko Haram 86 days ago had escaped back to Chibok. 

Borno Governor, Mr Shettima and Chibok Girls's Principal,
Asabe Kwambura, when the Governor visited Chibok in April

Media news editors had gone wild breathing heavily on the necks of their local reporters covering the northeast Nigeria to find verify the breaking story at all cost. 

But sadly neither the Principal of the Government Secondary School Chibok, Mrs Asabe Kwambura nor parents of the said abducted girls had set their eyes on the girls yet. 

Speaking with this blogger at about 1:40pm on Wednesday, Mrs Asabe Kwambura said "This is very untrue; we have not received any news or seen any of the said escaped girls. I am the principal and I am in touch with many parents and leaders of Chibok Community every day and if such gladdening development had occurred I should be the first to be contacted in Chibok; and if the girls were taken to the state capital the Commissioner for Education would have briefed the government who I believe would not have hesitated to celebrate it to the world". 

One of the parents of the abducted girls, Mr Lucky Chibok also spoke on phone with this Blogger denying the story. 

"No, no, no; we have not seen a single girl here in Chibok. Please could this be true?  I am just hearing this. But if they said the girls have come back to Chibok, I live in Chibok, and by now we should have heard about it. But we pray they all return safely in Jesus name". 

An official of the Nigeria Vigilante Group, Mr Abba Gava, could not also confirm the story even after he asked to be given an hour to make some verifications. 

When he was called back at 1:50pm he said "honestly we have not gotten any confirmation in that respect ; I tried several of our men out there but none of them had knowledge of girls escaping". 

The Borno state police command could not also authenticate the rumoured escape of the 30 Chibok schoolgirls, even as it cautioned members of the public to be mindful of passing fake information on a very sensitive matter that involved precious lives of innocent schoolgirls. 

The Police Public Relations Officer of Borno state command, Mr Gideon Jubrin told this journalists on phone that "Honestly we are not aware of this escape; if such thing happened we, at least should be one to get it first and then pass it across to the appropriate quarters for onward publication. Though we pray that they all get rescued and returned home safely, people should be cautious of passing this kind of news that are unsubstantiated, which could cause further tension to the people directly affect".

Earlier, an SMS message like this goes viral; “… there is a report filtering that 30 chibok girls escaped from Boko Haram through the help of local hunters..”