BRITAIN plans to send three Royal Air Force (RAF) Tornado planes fitted with surveillance equipment to Nigeria as part of its contribution towards searching for the Government Girls Secondary School Chibok pupils. On April 14, Islamic terrorist sect Boko Haram, abducted 234 girls from their boarding school in Borno State and have held them in captivity since. Several countries gave sent spy planes to Nigeria to help with their search but as this has failed to locate the girls, the international community has decided to step up its efforts. Yesterday the RAF said it will deploy the Tornado GR4s to fly reconnaissance missions over northeastern Nigeria to help track Boko Haram's movements. It is believed the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) will fly them in from the runway of a neighbouring country. An MoD spokesman said: “The UK continues to work with the US, France, Nigeria, its neighbours and international partners to provide advice and assistance to the Nigerian government. Together with our allies, we have provided continuous surveillance support to the Nigerian authorities, including satellite imagery and we are still in discussion with partners on the deployment of further surveillance capability." Meanwhile, in Abuja yesterday, the BringBackOurGirls (BBOG) movement said yesterday that the government it them an apology for initially denying the abduction of the Chibok girls. They said that when the news first broke that the girls had been abducted and they began protesting for their safe rescue, people in government accused them of lying and being sponsored by the opposition instead of squarely looking into the problem.
