There is still some uncertainty over the ceasefire agreement that Nigeria claimed to have signed with the militant Boko Haram group, as regards the release date for the captured 219 Chibok schoolgirls.

Contrary to earlier statements that the girls freedom would be secured by Monday, Reuters in a despatch today said Nigerian officials are shifting the date by 24 hours.

Some of the Chibok schoolgirls captured in April

According to Reuters, an unidentified senior Nigerian official working in the presidency, has said the government would now be able to secure the girls release on Tuesday.He however declined to comment on where the transfer would take place, Reuters said.

“I can confirm that FG (the federal government) is working hard to meet its own part of the agreement so that the release of the abductees can by effected either on Monday or latest Tuesday next week,” the source told Reuters by telephone.

The head of Nigeria’s military, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, announced on Friday that authorities had reached a deal with Boko Haram for a ceasefire that would enable the release of the girls, who were kidnapped while taking exams in a secondary school from the remote northeastern town of Chibok in April.

Officials at the presidency and the military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Boko Haram, which conveys messages in videotaped speeches by a man claiming to be its leader, Abubakar Shekau, has also not yet commented on the ceasefire.

Some Nigerians are likely to greet claims of a ceasefire with scepticism after five years of violence.

Since the girls’ abduction, Nigeria’s military has twice claimed to have rescued some or all of the girls, only to back-track hours later.

Several rounds of negotiations with Boko Haram have been attempted in recent years but they have never achieved a peace deal, partly because the group has several different factions.

The group, whose name translates roughly as “Western education is sinful” has killed thousands of people in its struggle to carve an Islamic state out of religiously mixed Nigeria.