Unravelling Ceasefire
With the face of Boko Haram Nigerians are most familiar with yet to confirm the truce, militants of the group embarked on a killing spree across the Northeast less than 24 hours after the announcement by the CDS. Scores of villagers were killed by the insurgents in attacks unleashed on Maikadiri village in Abadam Local Government Area of Borno State and Sina and Grata villages in Michika Local Government Area of Adamawa State. The terrorists had also attempted to recapture Damboa, a town that is 85 kilometres to Maiduguri and shares a border with Sambisa forest, believed to be the main base of the insurgents. Damboa was under the control of the insurgents for many days until Nigerian troops recently chased them out of the area. This time around, Nigerian soldiers killed 25 members of the sect to repel them despite the ceasefire deal. Defending the soldiers’ action, a military source said last week that the Nigerian military will not stand by and watch when an enemy is invading the country’s territory or killing the citizens.
Reports indicated that the terrorists continued their latest round of atrocities with the kidnap of about 60 girls in Wagga Mangoro and Garte, two villages in Adamawa that have been under their control since last Wednesday. In the same vein, the sect is still in control of many town and villages they have confiscated as part of their Islamic Caliphate despite the ceasefire deal. Some of the areas under the control of the insurgents include Bama, Gamboru Ngala, Kala-Balge, Gwoza and Dikwa LGAs of Borno State, Abdurrahman Talbe, a legislator, told the House of Representatives last Tuesday. “Contrary to earlier reports that the said local government areas were reclaimed by the Nigerian government and are now under the control of Nigerian troops, they are still under the control of the Boko Haram,” said Talbe. A bombing incident at a bus station in Azare, Bauchi state, which claimed five lives last Wednesday and which had the imprimatur of the sect, provided a further poignant proof of the hollowness of the peace deal reached with the sect, by the Nigerian government.

Confusion
The federal government has been scratching its head to explain the obvious unravelling of the deal that put the credibility of the entire negotiation to question. One of the arguments was that different cells within the sect who are not part of the ongoing talks might have carried out the string of attacks.
Tukur, who appeared to be Nigeria’s chief negotiator in the talks with the terrorist group, said the federal government would investigate if there has been violation of the peace deal by the sect while acknowledging that there are various cells within Boko Haram, some of which may not want to obey the directive of their leaders. He added in an interview with ARISE Television that he did not believe that Boko Haram would back out of the ceasefire deal since the sect honoured its first promise to Cameroon, which led to the release of the wife of the deputy prime minister of the Central African country and 10 Chinese nationals it kidnapped between May and July.
The President of Chad also brokered the deal, he claimed.
“Since it delivered on its promise to Cameroon, we expect Boko Haram to deliver on the release of the Chibok girls and the cessation of hostilities in north-eastern Nigeria,” said Tukur. He insisted that the discussion with Boko Haram would continue despite what seemed to be early breaches of the agreement on cessation of hostilities.
In contrast, Senator Ahmed Zannah, who represents Borno Central in the upper chamber of National Assembly, advised the federal government to exercise a high level of discretion in dealing with the sect, while expressing doubt about the sincerity of the Boko Haram sect to the ceasefire deal. He questioned the deal in the face of the ongoing attacks by the insurgents in parts of Borno: “I do not think it is true because the Boko Haram insurgents are still attacking communities in Borno. The insurgents attacked villages in both northern and southern Borno on Saturday.”
This magazine gathered that the military, in tune with this suspicion has refused to drop its guard so as not to be taken by surprise by the insurgents. While the military may not embark on outright offensive, it was learnt that troops are on alert to defend the territories under their control in case of any surprise attack.
In spite of the breaches, the Borno State chapter of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, remained optimistic about the prospects of the talks to engender the much sought-after peace in the northern part of the country. In a communiqué it issued at the end of its three-day fasting and prayer, the group said the breach of the ceasefire should not stop the government from following the ongoing negotiations to a logical conclusion. Rev. Titus Pona, Borno State CAN chairman, told journalists that since the insurgents had expressed their desire for peace, government must follow the negotiation through. “We pray that the offer for ceasefire will be stuck to and come to reality in order to have the abducted ones released and for an end to the insurgency ravaging Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states and other parts of the country,” Pona said.
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Who is Danladi Ahmadu?
Such optimism is no doubt predicated on the belief that the government was negotiating with the right people who can indeed influence the terrorist group to stop its war against the Nigerian state. To erase doubts about the question on whether the government was negotiating with the right group of people, Tukur had told Arise Television that the deal was with Boko Haram led by the “dead sect leader Abubakar Shekau.”
According to him, the people negotiating with Nigeria claimed to be emissaries sent by “Imam Abubakar Shekau”, when they contacted the Chadian government to initiate discussion with the country.
This magazine gathered that some months ago, the supposed Boko Haram insurgents had contacted Deby on their readiness for talks that would lead to the end of their insurgency in Nigeria. The Chadian President was said to have asked its intelligence agency to investigate the claims of the group, after which he was convinced that the emissaries who contacted him were true representatives of the insurgent group troubling Nigeria.
Before the Nigerian deal, Deby, himself a former leader of a rebel group, had brokered the Cameroonian deal in which $400,000.00 was allegedly paid to the same set of insurgents. Deby was said to have told President Jonathan, who had always insisted that the Boko Haram terrorists are faceless, of the willingness of the terror group to enter into talks with the Nigerian government during his visit to Chad last month. The President was said to have nominated Tukur, who was accused of sabotaging one of the earliest efforts to reach a peace deal with Boko Haram, to lead the talks in N’djamena on behalf of Nigeria.
Apart from the breach of the ceasefire, analysts have also questioned the identity of Danladi Ahmadu, the purported Boko Haram representative at the talks. Ahmadu had claimed he is the secretary-general of the insurgent group. He also said he had never met Shekau.
Ahmadu told Voice of America, VOA, that Nigeria’s representatives and Boko Haram were holding talks in Saudi Arabia – aided by the Chadian President and officials from Cameroon – on the release of the Chibok girls, who he said are in good condition and unharmed.
The Boko Haram representative, who claimed he was at a location on the Nigerian-Chadian border when he granted the interview, failed to elaborate on the conditions under which the girls would be freed. The Saudi government is not involved in the negotiations. “It is not clear who the said Boko Haram negotiator is and whether he has the mandate of the entire group or just a faction of the entire group,” said Nnamdi Obasi, a Nigerian researcher for the International Crisis Group, said in an interview with a news agency.
Sources with intimate knowledge of the insurgent group said Danladi Ahmadu, had no connection to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. Ahmadu had further raised doubts on his true identity when he referred to the insurgent group as “Boko Haram” and not Jama’atu Ahlul Sunnah Lidda’awati wal Jihad in the interview he granted VOA. Members of the sect prefer to be addressed this way, instead of being called Boko Haram, which they consider as derisive of their ideology. “Danladi Ahmadu is NOT part of #BH Shura (ruling council) or speaks for them as far as I know,” said Ahmad Salkida, a Nigerian journalist, based in Dubai and who is believed to have high-level contacts among the group’s leaders.
Ahmadu “does not speak” for Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, Salkida wrote on Twitter a few hours after the announcement of the peace deal.
“What is most worrying here is, government at the highest level and the intelligence formations in Nigeria have embraced this ‘good news’”, he tweeted, adding that the government has consistently shown lack of understanding of the reality that the Boko Haram Haram ideology can only be neutralised after long, hard work that is yet to start.
“It also appears that government is more interested in shadows and bubbles, than in substance and clear headed engagement with the Boko Haram ideology,” said Salkida.
“The person that came out to talk and say he is their Secretary-General, as a journalist, if you have studied how they (Boko Haram members) speak, they have never for once refer to themselves as Boko Haram, but this man has said it. And ever since he has been talking, he has not mentioned God for once, or even mentioned any Arabic word,” said Zannah Mustapha, a Maiduguri-based lawyer who stood for Boko Haram members arrested during the 2009 uprising of the sect which led to the ongoing insurgency.
Zannah continued his dissection of Ahmadu: “And they (Boko Haram members) don’t even lament about death or their members dying, because that is what they are yearning for anyway,” punching more holes in the claims of the envoy of Boko Haram that the insurgents want a peace deal because of the killing of their members.
According to Zannah, Ahmadu also failed to clearly affirm if Boko Haram had agreed to a ceasefire or would release the girls’ in its custody. The declaration of the ceasefire deal between the FG and Boko Haram is deceptive because Nigerians have not seen the government representatives and that of Boko Haram discussing the deal on either the television or at least viewed pictures on newspapers at a venue, to show us that the agreement is true,” the lawyer added.