Should Government Negotiate With or Fight Boko Haram?

Category: Boko Haram News    

With the #BringBackOurGirls receiving over 3 million tweets and the whole world turning focus on Nigeria after over 200 girls were abducted in Chibok, on April 14, by the Boko Haram militant group. Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau released a video some days ago, showing some girls, about hundred of them, dressed in Hijabs (Muslim attire). 

The Boko Haram leader claimed that the girls had been converted into Islam, the dreaded Islamist extremist also demanded in the video that the sect's fighters across Nigerian prisons should be released in exchange for the kidnapped girls.

Nigerian authority had since reacted to the demand, saying that government would not negotiate with terrorists- Abba Moro.

Meanwhile, Shehu Sani, a former negotiator between Boko Haram and the government, has called for Nigerian authorities to negotiate with the girls' Islamist captors, and he said they may have to embrace the unpalatable option of a prisoner swap.

"There are two ways to which you can get these girls free," Sani told CNN's "Connect the World" show.

"The first is to use force, and the second is through dialogue. The use of force is not an option for now in the sense that nobody knows where these girls were kept.

"And even if you know, these girls have been embedded in with the insurgents who are heavily armed. And any attempt to rescue them will be putting their lives in further danger."

The director of a Nigerian government information ministry, the National Orientation Agency, said all options, including negotiations, are under consideration.

The Nigerian government has negotiated with Boko Haram for the release of kidnapped girls before, CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said.

Last year, the militant group won the release of some 100 of its imprisoned members after reaching an agreement to return about a dozen kidnapped girls, Cruickshank said.

Cruickshank warned that dealing with Boko Haram will just invite more such abductions, but Sani, a human rights activist in northern Nigeria, said authorities have little choice.

"I believe that the lives of these girls is more important to us than the insurgents that have been in detention. And we have nothing to lose if we send the insurgents and we can swap them with these girls back," he said.

The man purporting to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau appeared to open the door to such a resolution.

"By Allah, these girls will not leave our hands until you release our brothers in your prison," he said.

If not, they'll be sold as slaves, he said.

Rights groups have accused Nigeria of using heavy-handed tactics such as illegal searches, torture and extrajudicial killings to crack down on the militants.

Source: CNN

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