The federal government has indicated it willingness to dialogue with the Boko Haram extremists in order to bring the violence that has rocked the North east to an end as quickly as possible.

It said however that the insurgents must be willing to take part in such peace initiatives.

This position was made known by president Muhammadu Buhari’s special adviser, media and publicity, Femi Adesina, on Friday, in an interview with the BBC.

In the interview, Adesina expressed the government’s sadness at the needless loss of lives as a result of the insurgency and stated that the government was open to peaceful overtures to end the crisis.

He also said the government was doing all it could to deal with the insurgency..

“You will notice that his first two weeks of administration were dedicated to tackling the insurgency. He visited Chad and Niger Republics and the following week, the Presidents of those countries also visited him in Abuja.

The President of Benin Republic and the Defence Minister of Cameroon visited him; machinery is being put in place and once we’re through, we will see the end of the group. The target time for the deployment of the multinational force is July ending; that is in a couple of weeks,” Adesina stated

He said the issue of dialogue was being considered as a means of resolving the insurgency.

“If the insurgents are willing to dialogue, why not? You know attempts have been made for negotiations in the past and they didn’t work. Every reasonable person would want to see the end to this insurgency.