Buhari: FG ready to negotiate release of Chibok girls with Boko Haram

Buhari: FG ready to negotiate release of Chibok girls with Boko Haram

Sunday, August 28, 2016 1:00 pm


Chibok schoolgirls

Chibok schoolgirls

 

President Muhammadu Buhari has said his administration is ready to negotiate the release of  over 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram terror group in Chibok, Borno State in April, 2014.

Speaking in an interview with journalists in Nairobi, Kenya at the weekend, President Buhari said the Nigerian government is ready to dialogue with bonafide leaders of the terror group who 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.

‘‘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 for their release,’’ he said.

He however warned that the Federal Government will not waste time and resources with “doubtful sources’’ claiming to know the whereabouts of the girls.

‘‘We want those girls out and safe. The faster we can recover them and hand them over to their parents, the better for us.’’

President Buhari also insisted that Boko Haram has been decimated the Nigerian military with the support of immediate neighbours from Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin.

‘‘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.

 

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