Chibok Girls Are Alive And We Will Bring Them Back – Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan today assured parents of abducted school girls that were abducted by Boko Haram insurgents from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State and all Nigerians that the girls are still alive, adding that his government was doing everything within its power to get them back alive. President Jonathan disclosed this when he appeared on Kaakaki, a live Discussion programme on African Independent Television, AIT, hinging his optimism on the fact that if the girls have been killed, the insurgents would have displayed their corpses so as to induce fear. President Jonathan again, during the programme, admitted that his government under rated the capacity of that Boko Haram sect, a mistake he said explains their entrenchment. President Jonathan also expressed optimism that with the increased capacity of the military, territories that are still under the control of the insurgents would soon be recaptured. On why the girls are yet to be rescued despite recent successes by the military, the President said it is because “reasonable territories are still in the hands of Boko Haram. “We promised that we must get the girls. The good story is that they have not killed them because the terrorists, when they kill, they display. They use it to intimidate the whole society. The girls are alive. We will get the girls. Luckily, we are narrowing down the area of their control. So, we will get them” he said. Continuing, President Jonathan said: “At the beginning, probably we did not really (correctly) estimate the capacity of Boko Haram. It is obvious. Boko Haram started as a non-violent group led by Yusuf, limited to around Maiduguri area and Yobe. They did not even get to Adamawa. “Just like every group of youths or young people is inclined to criminality, over the period, they expanded their network and linked up with other terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda in the North and other similar brands in the world. “So, they continued to build their capacity and it got to point to know that for you to tackle them in the kind of environment they operate, you need some specialized equipment to use and we don’t manufacture these equipment now. That is why the movement has changed. So, it is not deliberate,” he said. On the March 28 presidential election, Jonathan admitted that the opposition he is facing is stiffer than that of 2011 but said he will still come out victorous. He said: “I agree with you that it was easier (in 2011) but PDP is still the dominant party. There is no polling unit in Nigeria where you don’t have members of the PDP. “Yes, for one reason or the other, within the party people get angry and may even vote against PDP but in terms of membership of the PDP, there is no party that has that spread.