Nigeria women and mothers of the kidnapped girls of Chibok stage a sit-in after a march calling for their freedom in Abuja on April 30, 2014
Jonathan has come under mounting pressure since gunmen believed to be Boko Haram extremists stormed the girls' boarding school on April 14, forcing them from their dormitories onto trucks and driving them into the bush.
Anger at his government's ineffectual response has fuelled protests at home and abroad, including in New York where dozens of Nigerians staged a demonstration on Saturday demanding that more action be taken.
"The president has given very clear directives that everything must be done to ensure that these girls must be brought back to safety," his spokesman Reuben Abati told reporters after closed-door talks on the mass abduction.
The meeting brought together for the first time all key players in the search for the missing girls, from Nigeria's military and security service chiefs to Borno state's governor and police chief, and the head of the girls' school in Chibok.
Until now Jonathan had conferred only with his security chiefs.
The Nigerian government said it has set up a committee, presided over by a senior army general, to advise on a mission to secure the release of the girls who are generally between 16 and 18 years old.
Police on Friday said kidnappers were still holding 223 out of 276 girls seized from the northeastern school - higher than previous estimates of the number being held.
A Nigerian newspaper Sunday published an interview with two of the girls who got away, who told of their abduction and "desperate" escape.
"They came into our school and deceived us into believing they were soldiers," Thabita Walse told The Sunday Punch.
"They were dressed in military uniform," she said. When they discovered the truth, "it was already too late and there was little we could do."
"They were shouting and rude," fellow student Amina Sawok told the paper. "That was when it became clear to us that they were insurgents.
"Then they started shooting and set our school on fire."
'I became desperate'
Both girls told of how they summoned the courage to jump off the trucks driving them into the bush.
"Our vehicle developed a problem and they were forced to stop. I took the opportunity with some girls to run into a dark bush," Walse told the paper.
"I have heard a lot about Boko Haram, the bad things they do and how they have killed many people in the state," said Sawok. "I was afraid and I became desperate."
"I felt getting to their camp could be dangerous for me, and it would be better if I escaped. That gave me the courage to jump out.
"Immediately one of us jumped out, the rest of us just started following her."
The independent newspaper published the pictures of the two girls who said they were unharmed.
"I am OK and very strong physically," said Walse. "The only problem I have is that some of my friends are still held hostage by terrorists."
Boko Haram's name translates as "Western education is forbidden", and it has repeatedly attacked schools during an insurgency aimed at creating a strict Islamic state in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria.
The Islamists have set schools on fire, massacred students in their sleep and detonated bombs at university campus churches, but a massive kidnapping specifically targeting girls is unprecedented.
The abduction is one of the most shocking attacks in Boko Haram's five-year uprising, which has left 1,500 people dead this year alone.
A car bombing in Nigeria's capital Abuja on Thursday that killed 19 has fuelled fears the Islamist group may be shifting its focus outside of its historic base in Nigeria's remote northeast.
Desperate parents have called for Nigeria to seek foreign help to secure the girls' release.
US Secretary of State John Kerry vowed Saturday that Washington would do "everything possible" to help Nigeria deal with Boko Haram militants and bring the children home.
RESULT
Nigerian protesters marched on parliament Wednesday to demand the government and military do more to rescue scores of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists
Nigerian Militants Sell Kidnapped Schoolgirls as Child Brides
Nigerian Militants Sell Kidnapped Schoolgirls as Child a community leader told the took to the street to press authorities toward decisive action.
Nigeria protesters demand rescue of girls kidnapped by ...
do more to rescue scores of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Nigeria protesters demand rescue of girls orders full review of
Abducted Nigerian girls forced to marry Boko Haram rebels ...
Scores of girls and young women kidnapped from a school in Nigeria are being forced the release of the kidnapped schoolgirls. leader Gerry Adams
Police revision: Extremists kidnapped more than 300 ...
Police say the number of kidnapped schoolgirls missing in Nigeria Teacher job action Mexican vigilantes search caves in hunt for last fugitive leader of
Activists protest against abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls
Activists protest against abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls. to rescue at least 187 school girls kidnapped by Boko Nigeria protesters demand
Failure to find kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls haunts ...
Failure to find kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls after at least 200 vanished into Nigerias dense Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau
Suspicions kidnapped Christian schoolgirls were married ...
Christian Today > At least some of the Christian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria are schoolgirls kidnapped by leader of the Chibok
Find And Rescue 230 Schoolgirls Kidnapped In Chibok, Borno ...
Find And Rescue 230 Schoolgirls Kidnapped In the marching orders to comb everywhere till they rescue of the Earth Nigeria Action Congress
Almost 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls have been sold ...
Boko Haram leader Imam Wednesday that the reports about the kidnapped schoolgirls mass weddings to demand action on this issue
