I’m Now Ready To Swap Captured Boko Haram Members For Chibok Girls – Buhari

Buhari said this in a statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, during a press interview at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Nairobi, Kenya.

The president who gave conditions for negotiating with the Boko Haram sect, said his administration will only enter into such an agreement only with genuine  and established leaders of the sect.

He said the insurgents must be able to convince the Federal Government that they have the missing schoolgirls.

Buhari also said the insurgents are free to contact the Federal Government through internationally-recognised Non-Governmental Organisation.

 “I have made a couple of comments on the Chibok girls and it seems to me that much of it have been politicised, said the President.

“What we said is that the government which I preside over is prepared to talk to bona fide leaders of Boko Haram.

“If they do not want to talk to us directly, let them pick an internationally recognised Non-Governmental Organisation, 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,” he said.

“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,” Buhari added.

Recall that the Nigerian Military recently claimed to have, once again, “fatally injured” Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram insurgents.

The claim which did not go down well with leader of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, admonished the military to stop killing leader of the Boko Haram group over and over, urging them to rather rescue the abducted Chibok girls.

However, an earlier report by CNN confirmed that the Goodluck Jonathan administration already killed Abubakar Shekau, after Jihadist group, Islamic State, better known as ISIS,  unveiled a new leader for the boko haram sect.