The Nigerian Government yesterday said it has reached a ceasefire deal with the Boko Haram sect to halt all confrontations with the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex issuing a directive to the service chiefs of the Army, Navy, Airforce and Inspector General of Police to comply with the ceasefire agreement in all theatres of operations.
The deal was also confirmed by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe yesterday.
The Voice of America VoA had quoted President Goodluck Jonathan’s Principal Private Secretary, Ambassador Hassan Tukur as disclosing the breakthrough.
He spoke to the VoA in Saudi Arabia where the talks which were brokered by officials of Chad and Cameroon were taking place. According to the international radio, a man, Danladi Ahmadu who said that he was the Secretary-General of Boko Haram, told VOA on Thursday that the Chibok girls were “in good condition and unharmed.”
The report said that Boko Haram did not elaborate on the conditions under which the girls would be freed and that authorities of Saudi Arabia were not involved in the negotiations.
Following the development, hope rose last night on the possibility of the release of the over 200 girls, who were seized from a school in Chibok, Borno State last April.
Okupe pointed out that a ceasefire deal had indeed been agreed by the two parties but did not say when the girls would be released to their agonising parents, who have been looking forward to reuniting with them since April 14 this year.
Okupe, who said the deal, was for a unilateral ceasefire by the Nigerian military and the Boko Haram insurgents, pointed out that the issues agreed upon would go through a process.
But he made it clear that in response to the agreement, the Nigerian army had stopped fighting the insurgents just as the sect had agreed to lay down their arms.
“There are some concessions that the Federal has agreed with the sect but I am not going to mention them. But we want cessation of insurgency and the safe return of the Chibok girls. We are on the path of achieving these,” Okupe said.
Asked why it took so long for the Federal Government to dialogue with the sect, the presidential aide pointed out that peace deal in any part of the world takes time and that Nigeria could not have been different.
Information had it that in another development, Nigerian officials met with Chadian Government officials as well as representatives of the Boko Haram sect in N’Djamena, Chad on Friday morning and that securing the release of the 219 Chibok girls abducted by Boko Haram was top on the agenda of the negotiations.
The cease-fire is expected to result in the release of the remaining 219 Chibok female students abducted from their school six months ago and indeed girls and women abducted from other communities in the course of the five-year deadly insurgency, said to have claimed over 12,000 lives.
Source: VANGUARD
