‘Boko Haram wants kidnapped girls exchanged for imprisoned members’
FORMER Boko Haram negotiator, Shehu Sani, has said the group plans to exchange the 300 kidnapped schoolgirls for “comrades” imprisoned in Nigeria
Nearly 300 schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria by Islamist militants could be released in exchange for jailed comrades, he reportedly said.
The source told newsmen that he believed the video, where Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened to sell the girls as slaves, showed he planned to use them as “bargaining chips” rather than kill them.
Sani said he believed the footage, released on Monday, was an attempt to persuade the Nigerian government into a prisoner trade.
“From my knowledge of the group, to have him saying that he will sell them is proof that this issue can be resolved.
“The group is most likely to want to attach some kind of conditions to the girls being released, such as the freeing of some of their own prisoners,” he said.