Talks Resume with Boko Haram to Free Remaining Chibok Girls

Matilda Omonaiye/

The Federal Government is set to commence another round of negotiations with Boko Haram this week in a bid to free the rest of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.

Senator Shehu Sani, who has been involved in the previous negotiations, told New York Times the government will be offering more captured militant commanders in exchange for the girls that are still in captivity.

Eighteen of the group’s founding members had been captured more than a year ago and were being held in government custody.

Following the deal, last weekend, which saw Boko Haram turning over 82 of the kidnapped girls in exchange for five of its captured commanders, Sani disclosed that Boko Haram now wants the rest of its leaders, thus, opening a window to get many, if not all, of the 113 girls still missing.

“Swapping was considered a lesser evil than giving them a lot of money,” Sani said, referring to the exchange of Boko Haram commanders for the girls. “I had to convince the government if Americans can swap Guantánamo prisoners with the Taliban, and if Israel can swap with Hamas, we must swap.”

Boko Haram first released 21 girls in October, and then the 82 girls on Sunday morning.

Since their release, the girls are yet to reunite with their families. Instead, they met with a handful of government officials and leaders from the Bring Back Our Girls group, which had consistently pushed for their release.

Sani said negotiations began three years ago, when he contacted the family lawyer for Mohammed Yusuf, Boko Haram’s founder. Mr. Yusuf was killed in police custody in 2009, enraging the group’s adherents.

The lawyer helped set up talks, and Sani said he decided to include outsiders to monitor the process so that both sides would feel comfortable.

He said he contacted the European Union, which declined to have a role. The government of Switzerland agreed, and he also involved the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has said it merely transported the hostages.

At the time talks began, they were focused on how to end the war with Boko Haram, which was then at its zenith. The group was holding huge swaths of territory, and negotiations stalled while the government focused on the battle.

Then the military made advances, particularly in the months after President Muhammadu Buhari took office at the end of May 2015.

Part of the military’s battlefield victories, included the capture of 18 members of Boko Haram’s Shura council of leaders, Sani disclosed. Each member of the 30-person council was in charge of a cell of fighters. The captured commanders were taken to Abuja, where they were held in a secret secured facility.

Through the ensuing months, talks started and broke down repeatedly, in part because the military was reluctant to give up any commanders and offer Boko Haram a strategic edge, Sani further revealed.

Only after it became clear that Boko Haram was scattered did government officials start to consider a swap.

“The government was confident that even if they were released, it couldn’t change the balance on the battlefield,” Sani said. “We were negotiating from a point of strength.”

Sani said in October, Boko Haram agreed to release 21 of the girls from Chibok as a show of faith, without an exchange of any commanders, but declined to say whether the government had paid a ransom for those girls.

“I prefer to say there was a deal,” he said.

Talks continued until late last week, when Boko Haram handed over a list of 82 names of the girls it planned to free and government negotiators handed over the names of five commanders.

Sani did not disclose whether money had changed hands for this group either, again referring to “a deal.”

He said he expected another exchange would soon free more, if not all, of the remaining girls.