President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday
said that the Federal Government had begun negotiations with members of
the Boko Haram sect to secure the release of the Chibok girls.
The President disclosed this while
responding to questions from members of the Nigerian community in France
under the aegis of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation.
Buhari said that he was worried by the
continued stay of the girls in the camps of Boko Haram since April 14,
2014 when they were abducted by Boko Haram fighters.
The
President noted that the incident had attracted global attention and
sympathy within Nigeria, adding that his government could not fold its
arms.
“The issue of Chibok girls has occupied
our minds and because of the international attention it drew and the
sympathy throughout the the world. The government is negotiating with
some of the Boko Haram leadership,” he stated.
According to him, government has to
first establish genuine members of the sect so that it will not make the
mistake of engaging the wrong persons.
Buhari said, “It is a very sensitive
development in the sense that first we have to establish whether they
genuine leaders of Boko Haram? That is number one. Number two, what are
their terms, the first impression we had was not very encouraging.”
The President said one of the conditions
given by Boko Haram sect was to release one of its members who was
developing Improvised Explosives Devices.
He, however, said that his government rejected the demand.
Buhari stated, “They wanted us to
release one of their leaders who is a strategic person in developing and
making IEDs that is causing a lot of havoc in the country by blowing
people in churches, mosques, market places, motor parks and other
places. But it is very important that if we are going to talk to
anybody, we have to know how much he is worth.
“Let them bring all the girls and then,
we will be prepared to negotiate, I will allow them to come back to
Nigeria or to be absorbed into the community. We have to be very
careful, the concern we have for the Chibok girls, one can only imagine
having a daughter who is between 14 and 18 years there for more than one
and a half years. A lot of the parents who have died would have
preferred to see the graves of their daughters to the condition they
imagined they were in.”
According to him, the kidnap of the
girls has drawn a lot of sympathy throughout the world. This, he said,
was the reason government was negotiating for the release of the girls.
President Buhari assured Nigerians in
the Diaspora that his administration was doing everything possible to
improve the economy through provision of infrastructure in critical
sectors.
The Special Adviser to the President on
Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, had in July confirmed the
willingness of the Federal Government to negotiate with the sect.
Adesina, who lamented that the
insurgents, killed many people, said the Federal Government would not
rule out negotiations with the sect, if it would lead to the end of
terrorism.
The Nigerian Army spokesman Col. Sani Usman, a few days ago, said that members of the terror group were surrendering “en masse.”
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