President Buhari vows to rescue kidnapped Chibok girls

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari pledged Monday at the United Nations to rescue the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram fighters in 2014 and to defeat the Islamist militia.

“One of our major aims is to rescue the Chibok girls alive and unharmed,” he said to applause, making his first address to the General Assembly since taking office earlier this year.

Buhari, who has promised to stamp out the group’s bloody six-year insurgency, told the General Assembly that his government had put in place “a bold and robust strategy to defeat Boko Haram.”

“The new Nigerian Government which I have the honour to head, moved with dispatch to put in a bold and robust strategy to defeat Boko Haram. Nigeria and her neighbours Cameroon, Chad and Niger plus Benin are working together to face this common threat within the regional framework of the Lake Chad Basin Commission. We have established a multinational joint task force to confront, degrade and defeat Boko Haram, he said.

“We have driven them away from many of their strongholds, killed or captured many of their operatives or commanders and freed several hundreds of hostages.”

Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin had established a “joint task force to confront, degrade and defeat” the militia, Buhari said.

“We have driven them away from many of their strongholds, killed or captured many of their operatives or commanders and freed several hundreds of hostages,” he said.