Buhari on Al Jazeera

(Click for a preview)Al Jazeera

President Muhammadu Buhari will feature at 19.30 GMT today on Al-Jazeera fielding questions on Boko Haram, Chibok schoolgirls and others.

In the interview with Mehdi Hasan on Al Jazeera English’s ‘Upfront’,President Muhammadu Buhari says he “will not resign” if he is unable to fulfil his promise of defeating Boko Haram by December.

Buhari said he would instead be “determined to stay on and fight it out”.

The president also reiterated his willingness to do a deal with Boko Haram to free the kidnapped Chibok girls on the condition that the true leaders of the sect are the ones to be dialogued with.

“We said it and we meant it,” he said. “They have to prove to us that they are alive, they are well, and then we can…negotiate with them. We said it and we meant it. If we are satisfied that the girls are alive.”

Asked whether he would offer financial payments, or a prisoner release, to Boko Haram in return for the girls, he refrained from ruling out either option, saying:

“Well, it depends on the negotiations with the leadership of Boko Haram.” Still, he expressed assurance that Boko Haram will be defeated by the end of 2015, saying:

“As soon as the rainy season comes, which is by the end of the year… Boko Haram will virtually be out of their main stronghold and that will be the end of it….

Attacks by Boko Haram on townships, on military installations, will certainly stop.”

*The Interview will air at 19.30 GMT