President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed his willingness to swap Boko Haram prisoners for the Chibok girls as demanded by the insurgents, stressing he would do all he could to rescue the Chibok school girls abducted by the Boko Haram terrorist group two years ago.
The president however said the detained insurgents would only be released on the condition that Boko Haram lists their members they want released and also come out to discuss with the Federal Government.
He says the Federal Government will want the girls out safe without any harm done to them.
President Buhari made this known during an interview on the sidelines of the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, TICAD VI, in Nairobi, Kenya.
“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 added that “We want those girls out and safe. The faster we can recover them and hand them over to their parents, the better for us.”
“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.”
The President later took to one of his social media platforms to commend the Nigerian military for their efforts and sacrifice in the war against terror in the country.
“Our gallant troops in the Northeast have already rescued thousands of people. We will never give up on the Chibok girls,” he tweeted.
Recall that the Bring Back Our Girls campaigners had continued their demands that federal government did more to rescue the Chibok girls kidnapped from their boarding school in Borno State over two years ago, even if it means swapping them for detained insurgents.