NIGERIAN president-elect Muhammadu Buhari dashed parents’ expectations yesterday by warning that he cannot promise to find the 219 schoolgirls abducted from their school in Chibok by Boko Haram extremists a year ago.

However, he pledged that his administration would do everything in its power to track them down.

“We do not know if the Chibok girls can be rescued. Their whereabouts remain unknown. As much as I wish to, I cannot promise that we can find them,” Mr Buhari said in a statement marking the anniversary of the mass abduction.

Failure to rescue the girls was a key element in President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent election defeat.

It also sparked criticism of the Nigerian military, which has repeatedly issued false statements about the girls and continues to make hollow promises to bring them home.

“We hear the anguish of our citizens and intend to respond accordingly,” said the president-elect. “This new approach must also begin with honesty.”

Activists are marking the anniversary of the mass abduction with a change of their slogan from “Bring back our girls — now and alive” to “Never to be forgotten.”

Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai sent a hopeful message to the captives, promising them scholarships and urging them to never lose courage.

She chastised President Jonathan’s administration and the international community, saying that neither had done enough to rescue the girls.

The outrage sparked a global mass movement with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.

New York’s Empire State Building was lit up last night in purple and red, symbolising the movement’s call for abuse of women and girls to end.

At least 2,000 women and girls have been abducted by Boko Haram since the start of 2014. Many have been forced into sexual slavery and others trained to fight, a new Amnesty International report said.

Hundreds of boys and young men have also been kidnapped and forced to take up arms with the extremists or killed for refusing to do so, it added.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has claimed that the Chibok girls have converted to Islam and been married off to his fighters.

by Our Foreign Desk