Troops of Operation Lafiya Dole deployed in Pulka on Thursday rescued one of the Chibok girls abducted by Boko Haram terrorists earlier in 2014.
A statement by spokesman for Operation Lafiya Dole, Onyema Nwachukwu, preliminary investigations reveal that the young girl identified as Salomi Pugu is the same as the Chibok girl published on serial 86 of the online list of abducted Chibok girls.
“Currently the girl who was intercepted in the company of another young girl, Jamila Adams about 14 years old with a child are in the safe custody of troops and receiving medical attention,” Mr Nwachukwu, a colonel, said.
Sometimes last year, it could be recalled that the Federal Government in collaboration with international intelligence agencies and the Nigerian Army secured the release of 82 kidnapped Chibok girls.
At the reunion held in Abuja, fathers gripped their daughters in tight embrace, while mothers shrieked with joy, wiping away tears streaming from their eyes.
One beaming father picked his daughter up and swung her around in the air.
They hadn’t seen each other since 14 April 2014, when Boko Haram militants snatched 270 schoolgirls from their dormitories in northeast Nigeria.
“I’m feeling very happy, I was dancing with her, she’s very happy,” said Yakubu Nkeki, whose niece Maimuna — who he had raised as his own child — was among the 82 released.
“Everyone was dancing today, even the old ones, everyone was dancing,” Nkeki told AFP.
“All of us had lost hope, we thought the girls would not be returned.”
Mr Nkeki, who represents the Chibok parents, said that they would attend a church service with the girls on Sunday, before returning home early next week.
In the meantime the girls would stay in a government facility in Abuja where they are receiving therapy and vocational training.
Minister for women affairs, Aisha Alhassan, has said that the government’s goal is to have all the rescued Chibok girls back in school by September.
