LAGOS
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan announced Sunday that the overwhelming majority of the schoolgirls abducted three weeks ago by suspected Boko Haram militants were Christians.
"It is understandable that Islamic culture does not allow you to expose women (girls) but in this case 90 percent of the girls kidnapped in Chibok are Christians," he said during a two-hour TV program with Nigerian media executives.
Jonathan made the comment when analyzing what possible reasons could make parents not want to release the pictures of the schoolgirls.
His assertion about the religious background of the girls appears to contradict his earlier argument that the government was struggling with "contradictory" information supplied by the local authorities.
On April 14, militants stormed the Government Girls Secondary School in Borno State's Chibok, located on the fringes of the Sambisa Forest, a known Boko Haram hideout.
They loaded scores of schoolgirls onto trucks before driving away unhindered.
A full two weeks later, the exact number of the missing schoolgirls remains dogged by controversy.
While local authorities say 129 girls went missing that night, some parents put the total as high as 234.
Going by official figures, 73 are still missing.
Thousands of protesters marched through major Nigerian cities last week to demand "prompt and strong" government action to free the schoolgirls.
They criticized perceived government apathy amid the deep distress and sadness of the missing girls' families.
President Jonathan's remarks came hours after the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in northwest Kaduna released a list of the names and religious affiliations of the abducted girls.
In a statement, CAN said that 180 girls were abducted, of whom 165 are Christians.
"Chibok is 90 percent Christians. Majority of the girls abducted are Christian," said the statement signed by Mathew Owojaiye, an influential Christian cleric who once headed the Northern States Christian Elders Forum (NOSCEF).
"Every Christian home must raise a lamentation to heaven daily. Let God arise and defend his name, honor and majesty," he said.
The body also called on the government "whose duty it was to protect the innocent girls" to pay N50m ($312,500) to each of the girls when released as "trauma compensation" and to send each of the girls to overseas university on government scholarship.
The local Borno government has yet to speak on the CAN's comment.
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