ABUJA (REUTERS) - Nigeria's former president Olusegun Obasanjo told media some of the schoolgirls kidnapped by militant group Boko Haram in April may never return, in the most pessimistic comments yet on their fate from a member of the political elite.

Obasanjo said President Goodluck Jonathan's administration had taken too long to respond to the mass abduction. Once Jonathan's mentor and one of his strongest political allies, Obasanjo turned against him in December. "I believe that some of them will never return. We will still be hearing about them many years from now," Obasanjo told the BBC's Hausa-language radio service on Thursday, according to a translation of the interview.