Chibok girls: Buhari ready to dialogue with Boko Haram, says the faster the better

President Muhammadu Buhari has restated Federal Government’s willingness to discuss with Boko Haram in order to ensure that Chibok girls, kidnapped by the terror group since 2014, are freed.

This is as the Nigerian leader said he wants those girls out and safe, adding that the faster “we can recover them and hand them over to their parents, the better for us.’’

He made the intention of the government known in an interview with journalists in Nairobi, Kenya at the weekend, but said government will only dialogue when it sure that the group to dialogue with are bonafide leaders of the Islamic terror group who know the whereabouts of the girls.

This is contained in a statement on Sunday, made available to newsmen by Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant (SSA), to the President on Media and Publicity.

‘‘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. 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 told the journalists that the terror group, which pledged allegiance to ISIS, has been largely decimated by the gallant Nigerian military with the support of immediate neighbours from Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin.

Read also: Boko Haram may strike Lagos, Kano, ex-US envoy Campbell says

‘‘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.

President Buhari, spoke to the media on the margins of the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI).

By Ebere Ndukwu …

 

 

 

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