Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, released a new video on May 5, 2014. Nigerian Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, yesterday, May 5, 2014, threatened to ‘sell’ over 200 school girls it abducted three weeks ago, the BBC reported. Militant leader, Abubakar Shekau, sent a video in which he said for the first time that his group kidnapped the girls.

Parents of the students have been mounting pressure on government to release them. In an interview on Sunday, May 4, 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan said that all was being done to secure the girls’ release, but admitted that security forces have so far been unable to locate their whereabouts.

About 230 girls are still believed to be missing after they were seized from Government Secondary School, Chibok in the northeastern Borno State on April 14, 2014. Shekau said the girls should not have been in school in the first place, but should rather get married. "God instructed me to sell them. They are his property and I will carry out His instructions," he said. However, reports said the Boko Haram leader did not state the number of girls abducted, nor where they were taken or are now.

News agency reports said it was unclear whether the video was made before or after news last week that some of the girls were forced to marry their abductors who paid nominal bride prices of 12 Dollars each (about FCFA 5,700).

Other reports said the students were taken across borders into neighbouring countries. The girls - in their final year of school, most of them aged 16 to 18 - were sitting the School Certificate Examination when they were kidnapped from their dormitories.

By Kimeng Hilton Ndukong