It is 50 days today since over 200 pupils of the Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS) in Chibok Local Government Area of Borno State were abducted by Boko Haram insurgents.
The insurgents have offered to swap the girls with their members in detention. The Federal Government is not buying the idea, which the United States adopted some days ago to free its soldier in Talibans’s custody, writes TAJUDEEN ADEBANJO
When Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau released a video of the girls his men kidnapped in a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, their parents were a bit relieved. At least they were sure their children were alive. Shekau called for a swap of the girls with detained insurgents.
Shekau made the claim in a video obtained by AFP showing about 130 of the 276 girls, saying: “We will never release them (the girls) until after you release our brethren.”
Mrs Rachel Daniel, 35, mother of one of the abducted girls, Rose, 17, heaved a sigh of relief when the video was released.
Mrs Daniel, like other family members of the abducted girls, daily think about reuniting with their children.
Even Nigerians, especially the vanguards of #BringBackOurGirls campaign believed that the days of their protests on the streets are numbered.
But they were damned wrong! The Federal Government vowed not to bow to the insurgents’ demand.
Interior Minister Abba Moro told AFP that the government would not do Shekau’s bidding.
“The issue in question is not about Boko Haram… giving conditions,” Moro said.
A British newspaper reported that the girls would have regained their freedom a fortnight ago but President Goodluck Jonathan called off a prisoner swap deal with Boko Haram at the last minute.
The Mail said a Nigerian journalist, Ahmad Salkida – who reportedly fled to the United Arab Emirates last year following threats to his life on account of his closeness to the insurgents – was said to have been appointed by both the government and the extremists to broker an agreement for the release of the girls in exchange for Boko Haram members in detention.
“Sources in Abuja described how Shekau had agreed to bring the girls out of their forest camps in the remote northeast of the country in the early morning and take them to a safe location for the prisoner swap,” the paper wrote.
“They would have been dropped off in a village, one group at a time, and left there while their kidnappers disappeared. There was to be a signal to a mediator at another location to bring in the prisoners.”
The Federal Government was only expected to release 100 “non-combatant, low-level sympathisers” of Boko Haram, rather than commanders and foot soldiers, the newspaper reported.
About 2000 Boko Haram members are said to be in detention. Accused of being a Boko Haram sympathiser, the Borno-born journalist has always insisted he only maintains a “professional relationship” with certain members of the group whom he knew long before it became violent.
However, he was reportedly persuaded by the president’s aides to embark on a “secretive and dangerous” trip home to meet Shekau, after the president “personally signed a letter of indemnity” protecting him from arrest by security agents. But while attending the May 17 summit in Paris, France with leaders of four African countries and representatives of the European Union, United Kingdom, and the United States, Jonathan called home to halt the deal, the paper said. The action, it is believed, angered Shekau, raising fears that the girls might now be endangered.
Source: The Nation
No comments:
Post a Comment