Again Boko Haram Offers To Swap Detainees For Chibok Girls

Boko Haram extremists are offering to free more than 200
girls kidnapped from a boarding school in the town of Chibok in exchange for
the release of militant leaders held by the government, a human rights activist
has told The Associated Press.

The activist said Boko Haram’s current offer is limited to
the girls from the school in northeastern Nigeria whose mass abduction in April
2014 ignited worldwide outrage and a campaign to “Bring Back Our
Girls” that stretched to the White House.

The new initiative reopens an offer made last year to the
government of former President Goodluck Jonathan to release the 219 students in
exchange for 16 Boko Haram detainees, the activist said. He spoke on condition
of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters on this sensitive
issue.

Fred Eno, an apolitical Nigerian who has been negotiating
with Boko Haram for more than a year, told the AP that “another window of
opportunity opened” in the last few days, though he could not discuss
details.

He said the recent slew of Boko Haram bloodletting — some
350 people killed in the past nine days — is consistent with past ratcheting up
of violence as the militants seek a stronger negotiating position.

Eno said the 5-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 Jonathan.

Presidential adviser Femi Adesina said on Saturday that
Nigeria’s government “will not be averse” to talks with Boko Haram.