by Azeez Adeniyi

Spokesperson of the President, Garba Shehu has said one of the abducted Chibok girls refused to be freed because she was married to one of the Boko Haram fighters.

Shehu stated that the militants had agreed to the release of 83 of the teenagers, who were abducted from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014.

Speaking on Channels Television on Tuesday, he said, “One said, ‘No, I have a husband. I’m happy where I am’; and then, 82 came back.”

[Read Also: ‘HOW SOME ABDUCTED CHIBOK GIRLS REFUSED TO BE RELEASED – NEGOTIATOR’]

He said the government was trying to verify the identities of the freed girls.

“Names of the released girls have been published already but we do not want a repeat of duplications that we had when the first set of 21 girls were released.

“Because of similarities in names, we had two or three sets of parents coming on the assumptions that the girls mentioned were theirs. We don’t want to create that confusion,” he stated.

He added that the Federal Government would not stop any parent from immediately establishing contact with their daughters.

Shehu said, “Yesterday (Monday), photographs of all the girls were taken. These pictures were printed and dispatched to Chibok.

“These young ladies did not all come from Chibok township itself but some from various settlements scattered around the town.”