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| Africa Subsaharan | |
| Nigeria ready to 'swap' Boko Haram prisoners for Chibok girls | |
| 2016-09-17 | |
| Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, is prepared to swap Boko Haram prisoners for the Chibok schoolgirls, a minister has said. Last year the government almost secured the release of the girls whose kidnapping triggered global outrage, but three times the negotiations collapsed. On the first occasion, in August, Buhari had agreed to the prisoner swap and the militants were taken to Maiduguri, the city Boko Haram regards as its spiritual home. “All things were in place for the swap which was mutually agreed,” Lai Mohammed, the information minister, said in a statement. “Expectations were high. Unfortunately, after more than two weeks of negotiation and bargains, the group, just at the dying moments, issued a new set of demands never bargained for or discussed by the group before the movement to Maiduguri. All this while, the security agencies waited patiently. This development stalled what would have been the first release process of the Chibok girls.”
However Shekau later claimed still to be in control of the group and a video released of the Chibok girls seemed to have come from his camp. “The current division among members of the terrorist group ... has seriously affected efforts to release the girls,” Mohammed said. In an interview with the Guardian, Mohammed said that the government was now sure it was negotiating with the right people. The previous government under Goodluck Jonathan conducted high-level negotiations before realising that they were talking to charlatans. “We are confident that we have a grasp of the divisions in the group, so when there have been setbacks in the negotiations we have known why,” he said. “We can’t put any sort of time on [their release]. The thing is we are dealing with a group that can change the goalposts at any time. It is and has been a really tricky situation,” Mohammed said. He added that negotiations under Jonathan did not start until a year after the 276 girls were captured from a school in Chibok, north-east Nigeria, making it more difficult for Buhari. “It’s been a very testy matter because these divisions in Boko Haram are constantly shifting. But we inherited this situation and we are concentrating on rescuing the girls.” Buhari’s government was thought to be attempting to rescue the girls. The army had launched air strikes on Boko Haram strongholds and claimed to have wounded its leader. The Chibok girls represent just a fraction of the thousands of abductees – of all ages and genders – that Boko Haram has taken since its rise in 2009. In areas of northern Nigeria that the army wrested back from the terrorist group, millions of victims of malnutrition, neglect and in some cases famine are surfacing, presenting a humanitarian crisis on a scale that humanitarian workers are warning has never been seen before. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 Sounds good! Be advised, your people have all been...de-schwanzed. Are you still ok with that ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2016-09-17 11:35 |
| #2 I dunno if I could another 'pouty face' campaign. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2016-09-17 11:29 |
| #1 perhaps Mooch can kickstart another hashtag war |
| Posted by: Frank G 2016-09-17 10:02 |