Chaotic Rescue Efforts

A report in Sunday Mail, a British newspaper, indicated that contrary to the assertion by government, it had initiated a deal that would have led to a swap of Boko Haram detainees with the abducted girls, using Ahmed Salkida, a Nigeria journalist with long-term links to the insurgent group, as a negotiator. The Mail said a Nigerian journalist who now lives in the United Arab Emirates, was introduced to the President by a minister from the North and was appointed by both the government and the extremists to broker an agreement for the release of the girls in exchange for Boko Haram members in detention. The newspaper said Salkida was encouraged by the President’s aides to embark on a “secretive and dangerous” trip home to meet Shekau, after the President “personally signed a letter of indemnity” protecting him from arrest by security agents.

As reported by the newspaper, the deal eventually brokered by the journalist would have seen the Nigerian government releasing 100 “non-combatant, low-level sympathisers” of Boko Haram, rather than commanders and foot soldiers, in exchange for the abducted girls.

“Sources in Abuja described how Shekau had agreed to bring the girls out of their forest camps in the remote northeast of the country in the early morning and take them to a safe location for the prisoner swap. They would have been dropped off in a village, one group at a time, and left them there while their kidnappers disappeared. There was to be a signal to a mediator at another location to bring in the prisoners,” the newspaper said of the deal, which it said was called off on 17 May from France by the Nigerian President. But as it emerged early last week, the deal brokered by the former journalist is just one of the several others that have been called off at the last minute by government in the past one month.

As revealed by another British media organisation, Channel 4, Stephen Davis, an Anglican clergyman from Western Australia who helped broker an amnesty deal with Niger Delta militants, has also been working for the Nigerian government, trying to fashion out a deal with Boko Haram for the release of the abducted girls. The report indicated that the clergyman has been operating quietly as President Jonathan’s envoy, negotiating behind the scenes with Boko Haram for more than a month. According to the newspaper, the Australian has repeatedly braved the odds of violence in the region to have face-to-face meetings with Boko Haram commanders, working in conjunction with Aisha Wakil, a Muslim convert with known connections to the insurgent group.

A Nigerian newspaper had actually listed Davis, Salkida and Wakil as the negotiators leading government’s back-channel talks with Boko Haram. But the Australian believed that blowing off the lid on the negotiators is part of the intrigues by those determined to frustrate any deal with the sect.

According to Channel 4, Davis has not been impressed with the handling of the abduction and is positive that the girls will be released at the end of the day. “It’s complicated and it all lurches from pillar to post and things don’t get any better for the girls,” saidDavis, who also described the deliberate leakage of his name as unhelpful to the ongoing negotiations with the Boko Haram group. “The best way to do this is quiet and quick. But this is now loud and long. There are too many players from the two sides. This noise and clutter slows down the process and muddies the water,” Channel 4 quoted the cleric as telling it from an undisclosed location in Nigeria.

“It has become a very messy affair,” the cleric added. The Australian told the media organisation that his team had “come within a whisker” of reaching a deal for the release of the girls three times, which failed to sail through within the past month. He also said the missing girls are being held in three main camps, under different Boko Haram commanders, all of them outside Nigeria’s borders. “Every indication is positive. But as we get close to a handover, I am sure that there will be interference from some parties who do not want to see an end to the conflict in the North. That will be the most difficult time,” Channel 4 quoted the clergyman as saying.

Davis also confirmed claims by villagers across Borno State that the abduction of girls did not start with the Chibok students as there are many more girls in the custody of the insurgent group. He had earlier told Daily Mail of London that it will be very difficult to use the military to rescue the girls since they are being held in several camps and by several groups under different commanders.

Air Chief Marshall Alex Badeh had told a group of protesters two weeks ago that the military was aware of where the girls are being kept, but has been cautious so as not to put the girls in further danger.

“The vast majority of the Chibok girls are not being held in Nigeria. They are in camps across the Nigerian border in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. I say the vast majority as I know a small group was confirmed to me to be in Nigeria last week when we sought to have them released,” Daily Mail quoted the Australian as saying.

“To attempt to rescue one group would only endanger the others,” said Davis. “We must not endanger their lives any further,” he added. The newspaper also claimed that there have been two attempts to exchange the abducted girls for low level members of the insurgent group, which were sabotaged at the last minute.

Some of the girls, according to him, are ill and in need of urgent medical attention, but the logistics of handing them over has prevented their release by their abductors, the cleric told the British newspaper. Also, the British newspaper reported that it had also seen a third video in which eight of the abducted girls, dressed in their pale blue gingham school uniform, pleaded for release.

The newspaper said the video, which may have been shot in a jungle in Nigeria, has been presented to President Jonathan. “A tall girl, aged about 18, says tearfully, ‘My family will be worried’. Another, speaking softly, says: ‘I never expected to suffer like this in my life’. A third says: ‘They have taken us away by force’. The fourth girl complains: ‘We are not getting enough food’,” the newspaper said of the video, which it described as heartbreaking. Doyin Okupe, the Senior Special Assistant to President Jonathan on Public Affairs, confirmed last week that the President is in receipt of the video.

Analysts who spoke to this magazine last week contended that each passing day complicates efforts to rescue the girls. The fact that most of the girls may no longer be in the Nigerian territory, according to them, has also complicated the rescue efforts as the government may have to now deal with government of other countries if it want to get the girls out.