chibok girls

82 Chibok Girls: Govt Paid N830m Ransom

Release of 82 Chibok Girls came with a price: five senior Boko Haram militants were released in exchange and that was accompanied by the sum of Eight Hundred and thirty million (N830m).

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According to the BBC: “The details of the deal are sketchy. Our sources don’t want to be named and their version of events is hard to confirm, but they say the men were high-level Boko Haram bomb-makers, and that they were accompanied by two million euros in cash”

It also came at the cost Paying a ransom as well as swapping prisoners was a sticking point that almost unravelled the whole deal, one source tells us.

“It should have happened sooner, but the president was hesitating about freeing the five – and especially about the money,” says the person with detailed knowledge of the deal.

Persuading him was “very, very difficult. It was the most difficult part of the whole negotiation. He didn’t want to pay any money.

“The ransom was two million euros. Boko Haram asked for euros. They chose the suspects and they gave us the list of girls who would be freed.”

Governments rarely admit to paying a ransom, and this claim could not be independently verified.

Reaching that point took a lot of time and there were many setbacks, but trust was gradually built on both sides. The Nigerian army’s surge of military success helped strengthen the government’s hand. Nigerian senator Sani Shehu has been a main instigator of talks with Boko Haram since the early days of the insurgency.

President Buhari has not revealed if a ransom was paidPresident Buhari has not revealed if a ransom was paid

When Boko Haram’s founder Mohamed Yusuf was murdered in detention, Shehu arranged for his family to meet the former President Olusegun Obasanjo who was trying to broker peace. He knew a human rights lawyer, Zanna Mustapha, who had grown up with some senior members of Boko Haram in Maiduguri.

Though he never joined the group he had represented them at trial and retained close contact with the leadership. Zanna Mustapha agreed to join the negotiations, and was to become the key middleman in the release of the first 21 Chibok girls in October 2016, and then the second group of 82. He was the man on the spot when the girls were handed over. Neither man has spoken in public about whether any ransom money was paid.

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