Former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan has said the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 remains the deepest wound of his time in office.
Jonathan spoke on Friday at the launch of SCARS: Nigeria’s Journey and the Boko Haram Conundrum, a memoir by retired Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor.
He praised Irabor as “a soldier who stood for truth and never played politics with security.”
Looking back at his presidency, Jonathan admitted the tragedy of the 276 kidnapped schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno State will never leave him.
“One of the major scars on my government is the Chibok girls. No surgeon can remove it. It is a scar I will die with,” he said.
The former president said Boko Haram started in 2009 during his time as vice president under Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and later grew stronger while he was president.
“I battled Boko Haram for five years as president. I thought Buhari would wipe them out quickly, but they remain,” Jonathan said.
He described the insurgency as “far more complex than many assume,” suggesting that Nigeria may need to adopt a “carrot and stick” approach to end it. Jonathan also questioned why the crisis has lasted since 2009 despite military action and foreign support.
He pointed to the sophisticated weapons used by the terrorists, saying their firepower proved “external hands are clearly involved in sustaining them.
“Sometimes they even had more munitions than our soldiers.”
Jonathan’s government was heavily criticised at the time for being slow to respond to the abduction and for politicising the tragedy. He defended his silence back then, saying it was meant to protect sensitive investigations.
Over the years, 189 girls have been freed through rescues and negotiations, but more than 80 remain missing. Survivors continue to struggle with trauma, stigma, and disrupted education, with some returning home with children born in captivity.
The Federal Government has promised that finding the remaining girls, along with Leah Sharibu, abducted in 2018, is still a national priority.
