Nigerian kidnapped schoolgirls: President Goodluck Jonathan 'will visit town'

A day after cancelling his first planned trip to the area, senior special assistant Dr Doyin Okupe says Jonathan will go

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The Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan will visit the town where 223 girls were kidnapped by Islamist terror group Boko Haram, according to his financial aide.

After cancelling a trip to Chibok yesterday, Dr Doyin Okupe, the president’s senior special assistant, confirmed that President Jonathan would be organising another visit to the town at some point in the future.

Speaking to Sky News, Dr Okupe said: "The president will visit Chibok and we will get them released"

He added that they would do "whatever it took" to get the girls back safely.

Okupe also said that the belief that Mr Jonathan had decided against visiting Chibok because of safety concerns was a “misconception.”

The president’s decision to cancel his planned trip to Chibok, which sits in the Muslim region of Borno – a hotbed of Boko Haram activity – was met with outrage from those related to the girls that were still missing.

The relatives believed the snub showed that the government was not working hard enough to find the girls and that Mr Jonathan was ignoring the north of the country.

Despite it being a month since the girls went missing, Mr Jonathan is yet to visit Chibok and many feel it is because of safety concerns with the president feeling he might be susceptible to an attack from the extremists that operate in the area.

Mr Jonathan is currently in Paris at a summit hosted by the French president François Hollande with the hope of getting Nigeria and its neighbours, including Chad and Niger, to work more closely in tackling terrorism in the region.