Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan cancelled a trip to the traumatized town where Islamic extremists abducted more than 300 schoolgirls a month ago, according to the Associated Press.
It would have been the first reported visit by the president to the scene of an attack in the northeastern region that has suffered for five years the increasingly deadly assaults by Boko Haram, the AP reported.
Mike Omeri, director general of the government National Information Center, denied at a news conference that the president had ever planned a trip to Chibok, according to the AP.Two officials in the presidency confirmed the cancellation, saying there were apparent concerns about security after news of the planned trip was leaked to the media and published on front pages of newspapers Friday.
The road from Maiduguri to Chibok passes by the Sambisa Forest to which the girls first were taken, the AP reported. It is a known hideout of the insurgents and soldiers say 12 troops were killed in an ambush on that road on Monday night.
Jonathan, a Christian from the south, has been accused of insensitivity to the plight of the mainly Muslim northerners, according to the AP. Thousands have been killed over the years, and more than 1,500 civilians have died this year alone.
The Borno state governor had cut short a trip to London, arriving home hours before the president's scheduled appearance in Maiduguri, the northeastern state capital that was the base of the Boko Haram terrorist network, the AP reported.
Chibok community leader Pogu Bitrus had said earlier Friday that though residents had been angry at Jonathan's slow response to the girls' plight, they did not hold it against the president and considered his visit "better late than never," according to the AP.
Soldiers in Nigeria have told The Associated Press that some in their ranks actually fight alongside Boko Haram, and Jonathan last year said he suspected the Boko Haram members and sympathizers had infiltrated every level of his government and military, including the Cabinet, the AP reported. In January he fired all his service chiefs, followed by the defense minister.
