The\u00a0 Nigerian Government has commenced negotiations with\u00a0 Boko Haram , with the view to securing the release of the over 200 school girls kidnapped in Chibok, Borno State, President Muhammadu Buhari has said.<\/p>\n
The President made the statement while responding to questions from members of the Nigerian community in France under the auspices of Nigerians in the Diaspora Organisation (NIDO).<\/p>\n
He said his administration was worried by the continued stay of the girls in the hands of their captors and was working tirelessly to get them release.<\/p>\n
“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 negotiating with some of the Boko Haram leadership,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
President Buhari noted that the government had to first establish genuine members of the sect so that it would not make the mistake of engaging the wrong persons.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a very sensitive development in the sense that; first, we have to establish; are they 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,\u201d he further stated<\/p>\n
The President said one of the conditions given by the group was to release one of its members who had been strategic in developing Improvised Explosives Devices (IEDs), a demand that the government would not accept.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThey wanted us to release one of their leaders who is a strategic person in developing and making IEDs that is causing a lot of havoc in the country by blowing people in churches, mosques, market places, 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet 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 in the community. We have to be very careful, the concern we have for the Chibok girls, one can only imagine if they got a daughter there between 14 and 18 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 than the condition they imagine they are in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The\u00a0 Nigerian Government has commenced negotiations with\u00a0 Boko Haram , with the view to securing the release of the over 200 school girls kidnapped in Chibok, Borno State, President Muhammadu…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n