The Chibok community in Abuja yesterday made a stunning revelation of how the senior special assistant on special duties to President Goodluck Jonathan shared money unequally among the 51 escaped Chibok girls and the parents, which sparked off the furore trailing the presidential gift after their visit last week.
The association was reacting to the report on the BBC Hausa Service on the purported N100million presidential gift, where some of the parents alleged that the Abuja-based community leaders had short-changed them, saying that, no amount of money was given to the Kibaku Area Development Association (KADA).
Recall that the national publicity secretary of KADA (which organised Chibok community for the visit to the president), Dr Manasseh Allen, had explained that the association was never given N100 million before, during or after the visit, but added that when they were preparing to leave their hotel, a presidential aide had visited them and was seen by some people giving N100,000 each to some of the escaped girls.
“When we saw the president, we told him about our demands and he jotted it down. We left for the hotel. It was later we started hearing news about money being shared by the senior special assistant to the president on special duties.
“We don’t know how the N100m came about. We didn’t collect any money and we are not part of the sharing of any money. Some of our members said they saw the presidential aide giving out N100m to some of the girls. We promise to investigate the matter thoroughly to find out how much was actually given, to whom it was given and how it was being shared,” he said.
The community, operating under the auspices of KADA, described as completely false, malicious and unfounded the claim that its members also benefited from the presidential largesse, saying that their primary and only goal was to ensure the safe return of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls that
are still in Boko Haram captivity, and that it was sad that they “are losing sight of this to the allegation of sharing of money.”
At a press conference in Abuja, spokesperson of KADA, Mr Dauda Ilya regretted that the approach adopted by the presidency in disbursing the money had brought reproach and dishonour to the Chibok community. Revealing how the controversial presidential largesse was shared among the girls and their parents, Ilya said that on the night of July 22 at about midnight, “the senior special assistant to the president on special duties, who had been co-ordinating the visit on the side of the
Presidency, visited the hotel and told the 51 escaped girls who came that the Presidency sent them a token of N100,000.00 each.” He said the presidential aide gave them the said amount without any prior discussion with the officials of KADA or any other person in the community.
According to the Chibok community, he equally gave the sum of N200,000.00 each to 61 of the 122 parents that came on the visit and that “51 parents were given N100,000.00 each, on the basis that the money given to him was not enough to go round at N200,000.00,” adding that “the remaining 10 parents were not given any amount of money.”
On the money shared among some of the girls’ parents back home in Chibok, Ilya said, “It was the sum of N1m given to them by the Hon Member of the House of Representatives representing Chibok/Damboa/Gwoza Federal Constituency, which is the source of the alleged N7,000.00 given to parents in Chibok that were not part of the visit.”
Accusing the presidency of bringing disrepute to the Chibok community, KADA said, “While we acknowledge that any well-intended support for our suffering population, which has lost means of livelihood since the events of April 14 and subsequent attacks could be welcome, however,
the approach that the Presidency adopted has brought reproach and dishonour to our community in the eyes of the public that has supported us since the abduction of our daughters.
“We hereby state categorically that no amount of money whatsoever was given to KADA leadership to share among the parents and escaped girls, or for whatever reason and therefore.
