Buhari To Boko Haram: Talk To Us Through An International NGO If YouDon’t Trust Govt
*insists terror group's leader had been
edged out *says Niger Delta militants' ceasefire claim
is a ruse By Levinus Nwabughiogu 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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