•Lawyer Ogebe says her response on bogus story unsatisfactory

The CIA conducted a covert operation to rescue the Chibok girls in Nigeria although it didn’t recover them all, American journalist/author Liza Mundy insists.

The former Washington Post reporter authored the book “The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA” (Crown Books, October 2023) which was reported by People’s Gazette https://x.com/GazetteNGR/status/1759490218929930501 which revealed disputed details of an alleged rescue op of some girls by the U.S. spy agency.

People’s Gazette reported: “Molly Chambers, a California native who was among the new generation of women who joined the CIA after September 11, 2001, said she was sent to Maiduguri around 2017 to track down late Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau when multinational efforts intensified towards rescuing the schoolgirls abducted from Chibok in 2014, according to a new book by journalist and author Liza Mundy.”

Mundy in her book itself said: “Her third posting was Nigeria, where in April 2014, 276 female students had been kidnapped from a Christian boarding school in Chibok by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram…Working with the British and French, they hoped to get all the girls in one fell swoop, but some had been married off to fighters and were reluctant or unable to leave their babies, at least not right away. But they did get thirty at one time.”

However, several media reports have credited Borno lawyer and journalist Zanna and Salkida respectively for their pivotal roles in facilitating the release of 21 and 82 girls in 2016 and 2017 respectively and not 30 at any point whatsoever.

Indeed in a special report for the 10th anniversary of the Chibok schoolgirl kidnappings, the Wall Street Journal compounded the controversy surrounding Mundy’s claims that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency rescued 30 of the Chibok girls from Boko Haram.

In a story entitled, “One Sister Fled Boko Haram. The Other Was Trapped. Their Lives Will Never Be the Same” https://www.wsj.com/world/africa/boko-haram-chibok-schoolgirls-10-years-sisters-2206eea0?st=8gqtk5vjey4kett&reflink=article_email_share on April 20, 2024 the WSJ mentioned the US role in the quest of the abducted Nigerian schoolgirls:

“It was an abduction so inconceivable in its scale that it shocked Nigeria, and then, through Twitter, inspired a worldwide hashtag campaign—#BringBackOurGirls—tweeted by celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to the Pope. America sent drones and intelligence officers to look for the girls, although they failed to rescue a single student.”

This shocking disclosure directly discredits the CIA claim. According to U.S.-based international human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe who exclusively exposed the holes in Mundy’s CIA rescue op story last year, “We have a logical absurdity where American journalists with a top newspaper in the country based in New York published a story that American intelligence “failed to rescue a single Chibok girl” while an American journalist formerly of the top paper based in Washington like them also published a book making money claiming just the opposite – that US intelligence rescued 30 Chibok schoolgirls!”

Nevertheless, in response to his direct inquiry to journalist Liza Mundy to address his concerns with her story last month, the book’s author responded maintaining her original position.

In her first known response to the controversy after a year and a half, Mundy stated via email:

“Dear Mr. Ogebe, Thank you so much for your email. I certainly did not mean to give the impression that all of the schoolgirls were rescued. I am well aware that not all of them have come home. I don’t know the reason why. It is such a tragic and heartbreaking situation, and my heart goes out to the families. All my best regards, Liza”

Recent National Diaspora Merit Award winner Ogebe disclosed: “ As a top global authority on the world’s longest-running mass abduction, we have the initial 2014 escapes of 57 schoolgirls documented by the Christian Association of Nigeria in Chibok in concert with ThisDay Newspapers and ex UK PM Gordon Brown; the miraculous escape of Amina Ali #128 in 2016 facilitated by her community’s youth guards as documented by my team and cited in the book “The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria” (Paperback). Then there is the watershed work “Beneath the Tamarind Tree

A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram” by Isha Sesay, ex-CNN anchor who witnessed firsthand the historic home return/reunion of the first batch of 21 girls ransomed in 2016 to Chibok fleetingly at Christmas.

But Liza Mundy’s CIA rescue numbers and timelines don’t add up. And it was a combination of the world’s elation at Amina’s Ali seismic resurrection from the depths and CNN’s regime-shaming exclusive proof of life video that forced the freedom of 21 girls (Not 30) and a second 82 girls – not the CIA. And 80 girls are still missing BTW, 11 and a half years later.

Chibok schoolmates Ruth Ngladra and Saratu Musa and Naomi Dauda Yahi came back in 2021 and 2022 as has have three others in 2023 long after the period Mundy claimed in the book.”

Ogebe said he was prompted to write to the author following the final Israel hostages were released from Gaza by Hamas after two years in captivity in sharp contrast to the still missing Chibok girls almost a dozen years gone.

His words: "Liza sent a nice reply back but didn’t really address my questions about her suspect rescue story. I had in three prior reports and analysis demonstrated how dubious and doubtful these claims are from facts available to the public and from internal inconsistencies within the publication.

“I believe this is important to resolve because of the traumatized families who are being misled to believe that the CIA asked their daughters if they wanted to come back and they refused. This creates the unfortunate impression that they prefer a life with terrorists than their families.

“The fact that three more girls came out this year is proof positive that they do want to come home and a testament to the girls who did what the CIA didn’t do – free them! Liza Mundy must get to the bottom of this false CIA Chibok rescue.”