The federal government yesterday said it is willing to negotiate with the genuine leadership of the Boko Haram sect for the release of the school girls who were abducted from Government Secondary School Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014.
The government, however, said for the negotiation to take place, the insurgents, in the event that they do not feel comfortable to engage the government directly, can choose an internationally recognised non-governmental organisation (NGO) to discuss on its behalf, show proof that they are holding the girls and identify the prisoners in detention, which they want the government to release in exchange for the girls.
President Muhammadu Buhari, in an interview with journalists in Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday, said the Nigerian government was ready to dialogue with the genuine leaders of the terror group who can prove they have knowledge about the whereabouts of the girls.
President Muhammadu Buhari, in an interview with journalists in Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday, said the Nigerian government was ready to dialogue with the genuine leaders of the terror group who can prove they have knowledge about the whereabouts of the girls.
‘‘What we said is that the government, which I preside over, is prepared to talk to bonafide leaders of Boko Haram. If they do not want to talk to us directly, let them pick an internationally recognised non-governmental organisation (NGO), convince them that they are holding the girls and that they want Nigeria to release a number of Boko Haram leaders in detention, which they are supposed to know.
‘‘If they do it through the ‘modified leadership’ of Boko Haram and they talk with an internationally recognised NGO, then Nigeria will be prepared to discuss their release,” the president said.
President Buhari, who spoke to the media on the side-lines of the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI), warned that the federal government will not waste time and resources with “doubtful sources’’ who claim to know the whereabouts of the girls.
‘‘I have made a couple of comments on the Chibok girls and it seems to me that much of it has been politicised.
‘‘We want those girls out and safe. The faster we can recover them and hand them over to their parents, the better for us,’’ a statement by his senior special assistant, media, Garba Shehu, quoted the president to have said.
The president further maintained that the terror group, which pledged allegiance to ISIS, had been largely decimated by the Nigerian military with the support of immediate neighbours – Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin, even as he noted the split in the ranks of the terror group.
‘‘Some of the information about the division in Boko Haram is already in the press and I have read in the papers about the conflict in their leadership.
‘‘The person known in Nigeria as their leader, we understand, was edged out and the Nigerian members of Boko Haram started turning themselves to the Nigerian military.
‘‘We learnt that in an air strike by the Nigeria Air Force, he was wounded. Indeed their top hierarchy and lower cadre have a problem and we know this because when we came into power, they were holding 14 out of the 774 local governments in Nigeria. But now, they are not holding any territory and they have split to small groups attacking soft targets,” the president said.
On the militancy in the Niger Delta region, Buhari declared that while the federal government was also open to dialogue to resolve all contending issues in the area, it was at the moment, doubtful of the ceasefire declared by the militants.
‘‘We do not believe that they (the militants) have announced ceasefire. We are trying to understand them more. Who are their leaders and which areas do they operate and other relevant issues,’’ he said.
The president, however, warned that the Niger Delta militants must dialogue with the federal government or be dealt with in the same way as Boko Haram.
