The 21 Chibok schoolgirls release by Boko Haram are undergoing medical and psychological tests in Abuja, according to Laolu Akande, media aide to the vice president.
Akande made the disclosure in messages he posted on Twitter.
Currently FG assembling in Abuja medical and other relevant experts to provide support & care to the 21 Chibok girls just released.
— Laolu Akande (@akandeoj) October 13, 2016
The 21 released Chibok girls now undergoing medical, psychological & other necessary reviews being undertaken by experts, giving them care.
— Laolu Akande (@akandeoj) October 13, 2016
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will receive the girls in the absence of President Muhammadu Buhari who has travelled to Germany.
The Department of State Services (DSS), who are in custody of the freed girls, briefed Buhari before he left the country.
The Department of State Services (DSS) has briefed me on the matter, and will continue to provide updates.
— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) October 13, 2016
The government “wants the girls to have some rest, with all of them very tired coming out of the process,” presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu said.
He said their release was “the outcome of negotiations between the administration and Islamist militants”.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, later told reporters the government did not swap any Boko Haram prisoners for the release of the girls.
“We have assembled a team of medical doctors, psychologists, social workers, trauma experts, etc to properly examine the girls, especially because they have been in captivity for so long,” Mohammed said.
“We are extremely delighted and grateful,” the Bring Back Our Girls movement said on Facebook.
The group, which has campaigned within Nigeria and internationally for the release of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamic militants on April 14, 2014, said it awaits the names of the released girls.
“We thank the federal government and, like Oliver Twist, we ask for more,” said Professor Hauwa Biu, a woman activist in Maiduguri.
The abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State and the government’s failure to quickly free them has caused international outrage and brought Boko Haram to the world’s attention. Dozens of the girls escaped on their own, but most remain missing.
In May, one of the girls, Amina Ali Nkeki, escaped on her own.
Shortly after her release, Nkeki told her family that some of the kidnapped girls died of illness and that others, like her, have been married to fighters and are pregnant or already have babies, her mother told the press.
Since then Nkeki has been in the custody of the DSS where she is receiving medical care and trauma counselling, according to the government.
