Nigeria’s First Lady, Remi Tinubu, during her recent visit to the U.S., said some of the schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok, Borno State, by Boko Haram refused rescue because they “fell in love with their abductors.”

Mrs Tinubu, in a report by The Free Press published on Thursday, said the government was still making efforts to rescue the remaining of the 276 Chibok girls abducted in 2014 until it was realised that they had fallen in love with their captors. Ninety-one girls remain in captivity, according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

“Even those girls kidnapped during Chibok, they are still trying to rescue them,” Mrs Tinubu said, “until they learned recently that most of them fell in love with their abductors, so that’s quite difficult. You know, they refuse to come back.”

Mrs Tinubu, who attended the National Prayer Breakfast in the U.S. last week, said her mission to America amid an alleged Christian genocide campaign was to make some clarifications about “recent hype on social media that there is Christian genocide.”

The first lady’s claim that some of the Chibok girls refused government efforts to rescue them comes over a decade after they were abducted.

When contacted by Peoples Gazette, the Nigerian Army said it could not confirm Mrs Tinubu’s claim.

Its spokesperson, Onyechi Anele, said, “How do I confirm this now?” promising to verify and get back to Peoples Gazette. When contacted an hour later, Ms Anele did not respond to calls.

Boko Haram raided the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok in Borno State in April 2014, abducting 276 schoolgirls, marking the first case of mass abduction of schoolchildren in Nigeria. About 189 regained their freedom at different times, either through rescue operations by the military or by escaping from the terrorists’ den.

Last year, the national coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre, Office of the National Security Adviser (NCTC-ONSA), Major-Gen. Adamu Laka, said the federal government and security forces had not given up hope of securing the release of the Chibok girls.

“We have not given up hope on them; some of them were married to some of the insurgents. Some have come out. But let our focus not only on the Chibok girls because there are others that have been kidnapped,” Mr Laka partly said while briefing journalists.