NAIROBI-In a
way that apparently smacks the employment of a desperate measure to get the
stolen 218 Chibok schools girls out of Boko Haram unknown dungeon,
President
Mohammadu Buhari has asked the group to negotiate with a choicely foreign
Non-Governmental Organization, NGO.
This is the first time, the president would
be taking such a poignant position to rescue the girls abducted from their
sleeping bed at school dormitory in Chibok community, Borno State at the dead
of the night on April 14, 2014.
Notedly, President Buhari’s piece of advice to
the deadly insurgents who held the North eastern hemisphere of Nigeria to its
knees for years, later invaded and occupied the jurisdictions of about 14 Local
Government Areas until they were recently decimated by the Nigerian Army, was
coming days after the #BringBackOurGirls#, BBOG, a frontline pressure group for
the rescue of the girls waged another round of aggressive protest campaigns in
Abuja.
The group fueled by the indomitable protesting spirits of Dr. Oby
Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education/World Bank Scribe and spokesperson
of the group, Aisha Yesufu had made frantic attempts last week to storm the Aso
Villa, the Nigerian seat of power in Abuja but were frontally rebuffed by the
police and other security details.
But speaking to Journalists in Nairobi,
Saturday night, on the sidelines of the sixth Toyoko International Conference
on African Development, TICAD IV, president Buhari uttered that his government
was determined to secure the safe return of the girls but left a reiterated
caveat that the bonafide leaders of the terrorist organization must be the ones
to negotiate with. He said:
“I have made a couple of comments on the Chibok
girls and it seems to me that much of it has been politicized. “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.
The president warned that the Federal
Government would 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.”
The President insisted that the terror group, which he said had pledged
allegiance to ISIS, had been largely decimated by the gallant 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”, he said.
On the militancy
in the Niger Delta region, the President said the Federal Government was also
open to dialogue to resolve all contending issues in the area. He however
doubted if the ceasefire claims by the militants were real.
“We do not believe
that they (the militants) have announced ceasefire. We are trying to understand
them more. Who are their leaders and which areas do they operate and other
relevant issues,” he said.
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