In the bid to put a stop to terrorism in Nigeria which can be seen through the ceasefire agreement reached between the federal government and the Boko Haram insurgents, the representatives of the group on Monday submitted ‘a specific list’ of detained commanders the sect would want swapped for the Chibok girls to the Federal Government team.
A security source said that the security agencies had also started a process of verifying the status of those in the list submitted which is meant to ascertain the state of health of the Boko Haram members.
According to the security source, the on-going peace talks in Chad is witnessing “tremendous progress,” and this is being replicated in two other locations.
Meetings were said to have taken place at a location in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Chad, which the source described as the neutral and safe ground for both parties.
However, there have been rumours that the Boko Haram group could back out of the deal as a result of reported confrontation back home. These insinuations were dismissed by the security source.
“What I can say is that the meetings are on-going. Over the weekend, meetings held at Njdamena, (Chad), Nigeria and Saudi Arabia so it would not be right to assume that because nobody is talking the meetings have been suspended.
“We have made a big progress, a very big progress on the issue of the on-going negotiations. But these are not the right time to discuss details,” the source said.
The source denied media reports about recent abductions in Yola, Madagali and other towns in Borno State.
It was stated that some of the events being reported on the on-going talks took place about three months ago.
It has been revealed that the security agencies had taken a decision not to talk on the on-going deliberations with the Boko Haram until the objectives for the meeting were achieved.
It was learnt that the security leadership was of the view that a detailed reportage of the deliberation was harming the talks and should be avoided at this stage of the deliberation.
However, the source would not give further details when asked about the number of insurgents on the Boko Haram list and the most likely time to expect the release of the Chibok girls, who were abducted on April 14, 2014.
“The media should show some restraint in reporting this matter; this thing is about the country; people should not report this negotiation with sensationalism. You know how sensitive it is.
“Another thing you must note is that many of the reports about this negotiation are false; they are not true.”
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