Why rescuing them has not been possible, by envoy
A NEGOTIATOR involved in discussions with the Boko Haram terrorists over how to rescue the missing Chibok girls says the girls abducted about 452 days ago are certainly within Nigeria’s borders.

The negotiator, Fred Eno, a human rights activist, has been part of the team in discussion with Boko Haram commanders. In another development, outgoing British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr. Andrew Pocock, has said that the abducted school girls were located but rescuing them safely was practically impossible.

The negotiator in a telephone conversation from Europe told Persecond News the recent escalation of bloodletting by Boko Haram is consistent with their strategy as the militants seek a stronger negotiating position. Eno said the five-week-old administration of President Muhammadu Buhari offers a clean slate to bring the militants back to negotiations that had become poisoned by the different security agencies and their advice to former President Goodluck Jonathan.

He said two months of talks last year led government representatives and himself to travel to a northeastern town where the prisoner exchange was to take place, only to be stymied by the Department for State Service intelligence agency. At the last minute, the agency said it was holding only four of the militants sought by Boko Haram, the activist said.

Eno believes that the militants view the Chibok girls as a last-resort bargaining chip even as he said the Bring Back Our Girls campaigners were politicising the issue. Pocock, who visited Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufa’I, told journalists: “Our ability to return the Chibok girls is very limited. Well, after the abduction for some months it was clear that substantial group of girls were together.

It was also clear that they were by no means all of them. It might be a group of 50 or 80; it’s very hard to tell. It presented a terrible dilemma to everybody: Attempting to rescue substantial group of girls has two obvious problems; the risk to the attackers and to the girls. “It was possible that Boko Haram would have killed those girls.

And I am not sure whether the military capacity existed for the rescue of the girls. So even though it was possible to say where some of the girls might have been, they were beyond rescue in practical terms. I think the only way for the return of the girls in my personal opinion is through the defeat of Boko Haram.”

He said deployment of security forces to the North-East to deal with insurgency was not enough adding that government must apply economic measures. The High Commissioner said it was not a better option to invoke dialogue with sect because they didn’t constitute a legitimate government. “I don’t think we will advocate talking to people that abduct innocent civilians and cut people’s throat on video and show it to the rest of the world.

But what we could be talking about is disarmament and rehabilitation process for those who are willing to put down their weapons,” he added On Wednesday, Buhari welcomed the Chibok girls campaigners at the presidential villa in Abuja and pleaded: “We only ask for your patience.”