Nigeria group: Seized schoolgirls its to sell

Women attend a demonstration calling on government to rescue kidnapped school girls of a government secondary school Chibok, in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, May. 5, 2014,  A leader of a protest march for 276 missing schoolgirls said that Nigeria's First Lady ordered her and another protest leader arrested Monday, expressed doubts there was any kidnapping and accused them of belonging to the Islamic insurgent group blamed for the abductions. Saratu Angus Ndirpaya of Chibok town said State Security Service agents drove her and protest leader Naomi Mutah Nyadar to a police station Monday. (AP Photo/ Sunday Alamba)
Women attend a demonstration calling on government to rescue kidnapped school girls of a government secondary school Chibok, in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, May. 5, 2014, A leader of a protest march for 276 missing schoolgirls said that Nigeria's First Lady ordered her and another protest leader arrested Monday, expressed doubts there was any kidnapping and accused them of belonging to the Islamic insurgent group blamed for the abductions. Saratu Angus Ndirpaya of Chibok town said State Security Service agents drove her and protest leader Naomi Mutah Nyadar to a police station Monday. (AP Photo/ Sunday Alamba)

LAGOS, Nigeria - Nigeria’s Islamic extremist leader is threatening to sell the nearly 300 teenage schoolgirls abducted from a school in the remote northeast three weeks ago, in a new videotape received Monday.

Abubakar Shekau for the first time also claimed responsibility for the April 15 mass abduction, warning that his group plans to attack more schools and abduct more girls.

“I abducted your girls,” said the leader of Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful.”

He described the girls as “slaves” and said, “By Allah, I will sell them in the marketplace.” The hour-long video starts with fighters lifting automatic rifles and shooting in the air as they chant “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.”

It was unclear whether the video was made before or after reports emerged last week that some of the girls have been forced to marry their abductors - who paid a nominal bride price of $12 - and that others have been carried into neighboring Cameroon and Chad. Those reports could not be verified.

“Western education should end,” Shekau said in the video, speaking in the north-Nigerian language of Hausa and Arabic. “Girls, you should go and get married.” The Islamist leader also warned that he would “give their hands in marriage because they are our slaves. We would marry them out at the age of 9. We would marry them out at the age of 12,” he said.

In the video, Shekau also said the students “will remain slaves with us.” That appears a reference to the ancient jihadi custom of enslaving women captured in a holy war, who then can be used for sex.

The video was reviewed by The Associated Press, and both the face and the voice of the leader of Boko Haram were recognizable.

The mass abduction is the latest assault by Boko Haram, which has committed dozens of massacres of civilians in its 5-year insurgency in Nigeria’s north with the aim to destabilize and ultimately overthrow the Nigerian government. Earlier this year, for instance, more than 50 teenage boys were slaughtered - some burned alive - at a government school in the north. That atrocity, like many others, was quickly forgotten in Nigeria and was barely noticed outside of it.

The abductions come at an embarrassing time for the country, which Wednesday hosts the World Economic Forum in Africa conference.

In addition, Boko Haram is widely blamed for two recent bombings in Abuja, the capital, where the conference will be held. Nearly 100 people were killed in the attacks, and thousands of security forces have been deployed in the city to prevent terror strikes during the gathering.

But the kidnappings of the girls have attracted rare international attention, with foreign governments weighing in and the State Department also expressing concern.

Shekau brushed off warnings that the abductions could be an international crime, saying in English, as if to reach his accusers in the international community: “What do you know about human rights? You’re just claiming human-rights [abuse], but you don’t know what it is.”

Obama administration officials said Monday that the United States had offered intelligence and information sharing to the Nigerian authorities, although the U.S. officials declined to specify what federal agency or agencies were helping to locate the missing girls. Marie Harf, a State Department spokesman, told reporters at a daily briefing that U.S. officials had indications that many of the girls had “likely been moved out of the country to neighboring countries at this point.” She declined to specify which countries.

An intermediary who has said Boko Haram is ready to negotiate ransoms for the girls also said two of the girls have died of snakebite and about 20 are ill. He said Christians among the girls have been forced to convert to Islam. The man, an Islamic scholar, spoke on condition of anonymity because his position is sensitive.

Nigeria’s police have said more than 300 girls were abducted. Of that number, 276 remain in captivity and 53 escaped.

An organizer of a demonstration said Monday that Jonathan’s wife, Patience, ordered the arrests of two protest leaders, accused them of belonging to Boko Haram and expressed doubts there was any kidnapping.

It was unclear what authority Patience Jonathan would have to give such orders, since there is no office of first lady in the Nigerian Constitution.

Ayo Adewuyi, spokesman for the first lady, said he was unaware of any arrests. “The first lady did not order the arrest of anybody, and I’m sure of that,” he said.

But Saratu Angus Ndirpaya of Chibok town said State Security Service agents drove her and protest leader Naomi Mutah Nyadar to a police station Monday after an all-night meeting at the presidential villa in Abuja, the capital. She said police immediately released her but Nyadar remains in detention.

By Monday afternoon,police said Nyadar had been returned home. A statement denied she was detained, saying she was “invited … [to] an interactive and fact-finding interview.”

Ndirpaya said Patience Jonathan accused them of fabricating the abductions. “She told so many lies, that we just wanted the government of Nigeria to have a bad name, that we did not want to support her husband’s rule,” she said in a telephone interview.

She said other women at the meeting, allies of Patience Jonathan including officials of the government and the ruling party, cheered and chanted “yes, yes,” when the first lady accused the two of belonging to Boko Haram. “They said we are Boko Haram, and that Mrs. Nyadar is a member of Boko Haram.”

In a report on the meeting, Daily Trust newspaper quoted Patience Jonathan as ordering all Nigerian women to stop protesting, and warning that “should anything happen to them during protests, they should blame themselves.”

On Sunday night, President Jonathan said his administration was doing everything possible. On Friday he created a presidential committee to go to the affected Borno state to work with the community on a strategy to free the girls.

Information for this article was contributed by Michelle Faul, Lekan Oyekanmi, Bashir Adigun, Divine Ntaryike and Ibrahim Garba of The Associated Press; and by Adam Nossiter and Hamza Idris of The New York Times; and by Robyn Dixon of the Los Angeles Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/06/2014

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