Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari is ready to
dialogue with Boko Haram over the Chibok girls issue
Buhari has reiterated that he is prepared to find the
missing girls and bring them home
PMB says he will only dialogue with the real leaders
of the Boko Haram sect.

My government is prepared to discuss with Boko
Haram, for the release of the kidnapped Chibok girls,
says President Muhammdu Buhari.
In an interview with journalists in Nairobi, Kenya, at
the weekend, Buhari reiterated the preparedness of
the Federal Government to discuss the release of the
Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram terror group
since 2014.
NAN quoted the President as saying that the Nigerian
government is ready to dialogue with bonafide
leaders of the terror group who know the
whereabouts of the girls.
‘‘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,’’ he said.
President Buhari, who spoke to the media on the
margins of the sixth Tokyo International Conference
on African Development (TICAD VI), warned that the
Federal Government will not waste time and
resources with “doubtful sources’’ claiming to know
the whereabouts of the girls.

‘‘We want those girls out and safe. The faster we can
recover them and hand them over to their parents,
the better for us.’’
The President maintained 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.
‘‘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.
On the militancy in the Niger Delta region, the
President said the Federal Government is also open
to dialogue to resolve all contending issues in the
area.
‘‘We do not believe that they (the militants) have
announced ceasefire. We are trying to understand
them more. Who are their leaders and which areas
do they operate and other relevant issues,’’ he said.