Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has met with people close to Boko
Haram in an attempt to broker the release of more than 200 kidnapped
schoolgirls, a source close to the talks told AFP.
The meeting
took place last weekend at Obasanjo’s farm in southern Ogun state and
included relatives of some senior Boko Haram fighters as well as
intermediaries and the former president, the source said.
“The
meeting was focused on how to free the girls through negotiation,” said
the source who requested anonymity, referring to the girls seized on 14
April from the remote northeastern town of Chibok, Borno state.
Reports
of the talks emerged as Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief
Marshal Alex Badeh, said the girls had been located while casting doubt
on the prospect of rescuing them by force.
Obasanjo, who left
office in 2007, has previously sought to negotiate with the insurgents,
including in September 2011 after Boko Haram bombed the United Nations
headquarters in Abuja.
Then, he flew to the Islamists’ base in the
Borno state capital, Maiduguri, to meet relatives of former Boko Haram
leader Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009.
The
2011 talks did not help stem the violence and some at the time doubted
if Obasanjo was dealing with people who were legitimately capable of
negotiating a ceasefire.
Spokesmen for the former head of state,
who remains an influential figure in Nigerian politics, could not be
reached to comment on the latest reported Boko Haram talks.
But
the source told AFP that Obasanjo had voiced concern about Nigeria’s
acceptance of foreign military personnel to help rescue the girls.
“He
said he is worried that Nigeria’s prestige in Africa as a major
continental power had been diminished” by President Goodluck Jonathan’s
decision to bring in Western military help, including from the United
States.
Mustapha Zanna, the lawyer who helped organise Obasanjo’s
2011 talks with Boko Haram, said he was at the former president’s home
on Saturday.
But he declined to discuss whether the Chibok abductions were on the agenda.
“I
was there,” he told AFP, adding that Obasanjo was interested in helping
orphans and vulnerable children in Nigeria’s embattled northeast and
that possible charitable work was on the agenda.
Zanna had
represented Yusuf’s family in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the
government following his death in police custody.
It was not clear if Obasanjo’s weekend meeting had been sanctioned by the government.
Obasanjo,
who backed Jonathan’s 2011 presidential campaign, fiercely criticised
him and his record as president in a letter released to the public last
December and the two are widely thought to have fallen out.
According
to the source, Obasanjo supported a prisoner-for-hostage swap that
would see some of the girls released in exchange for a group of Boko
Haram fighters held in Nigerian custody.
As a private citizen
whose ties to the presidency have been damaged, Obasanjo likely does not
have the authority to negotiate any deal on the government’s behalf.
The
government, which has officially ruled out a prisoner swap, sent
intermediaries to meet Boko Haram in the northeast to negotiate for the
girls’ release.
The source identified one of the envoys as Ahmad
Salkida, a journalist with ties to Boko Haram who had been close to
Yusuf before his death.
“There was contact but it was bungled by
the government,” according to the source, saying Jonathan backed away
from the deal after returning from a security conference in Paris
earlier this month.
The conference saw Nigeria and its neighbours
vow greater co-operation to tackle Boko Haram because of the potential
threat to regional stability.
The chief of defence staff on Monday
said that despite having located the girls, the risks of storming the
area with troops in a rescue mission were too great and could prove
fatal for the hostages.
Source:PM News
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