The Presidency on Friday debunked online reports that President Muhammadu Buhari, while receiving the rescued Chibok girl, Amina Ali, in the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday, also received the girl’s alleged abductor.
This was contained in a message posted on the official Facebook page of the Presidency, Aso Rock Villa.
Amina was found by soldiers working with a vigilante group on Tuesday near Damboa, south of Maiduguri in Borno State, where Boko Haram has waged a seven-year insurgency to set up an Islamic state.
The army announced that it detained a suspected Boko Haram militant called Mohammed Hayatu, who said he was her husband.
The Presidency explained that the man who accompanied Amina to meet Buhari was her brother and not the alleged abductor.
The statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to rumours and insinuations that the young man who accompanied Amina Ali to the State House to meet President Buhari is her alleged terrorist abductor.
“This is false; there is absolutely no truth to it. The young man who was in the State House alongside Amina and her baby and mother is her older brother.
“He is different from the man who appeared with her in photos released by the Nigerian military, in the immediate aftermath of Amina’s rescue.
“All insinuations alleging otherwise are false, mischievous, and should be wholly disregarded.
“Under no circumstances will a presidential welcome be extended to terrorists or abductors.”
