Chibok Girls: Buhari Suggests Amnesty For Captured Boko Haram Terrorists
FILE PHOTO: Nigeria President, Muhammadu Buhari[/caption]
President Muhammadu Buhari has said that one of the conditions given by Boko Haram insurgents, for the release of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls, was for the Nigerian government to release one of the sect members with expertise in making Improvised Explosives Devices (IEDs).
The President stated this on Tuesday in Paris while responding to questions from members of the Nigerian community in France under the auspices of Nigerians in Diaspora Organization (NIDO).
Buhari said, “The issue of Chibok girls has occupied our minds and because of the international attention it drew and the sympathy throughout the country and the world, the government is (looking into possibility of) negotiating with some of the Boko Haram leadership.’’
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“It is a very sensitive development in the sense that first we have to establish who are the genuine leaders of the Boko Haram. That is number one. Number two, what are their terms? The first impression we had was not very encouraging,” he said
He said: “They wanted us to release one of their leaders who is a strategic person in developing and making IEDs which have been causing a lot of havoc in the country by blowing up people in churches, mosques, marketplaces, 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 only imagine if they got a daughter there between 14 and 18 years and for more than one and a half years, a lot of the parents who have died would rather see the graves of their daughters rather the condition they imagine they were in.
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“This has drawn a lot of sympathy throughout the world; that is why this government is getting very hard in negotiating and getting the balance of those who are alive,” Buhari said.
Buhari assured the Nigerians that his administration was doing everything to improve on the state of the economy through provision of infrastructure in critical areas.
