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According to AFP report , that the meeting took place at Obasanjo’s farm in Ogun state and included relatives of some senior Boko Haram fighters as well as intermediaries and the former president.
“The meeting was focused on how to free the girls through negotiation,” said the source who AFP said requested anonymity, referring to the girls seized on April 14 from the Chibok, Borno state.
Reports of the talks emerged as Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, said the girls had been located while casting doubt on the prospect of rescuing them by force.
Spokesmen for the former head of state, who remains an influential figure in Nigerian politics, could not be reached to comment on the latest reported Boko Haram talks, AFP said. But the source told AFP that Obasanjo had voiced concern about Federal Government’s acceptance of foreign military personnel to help rescue the girls. “He said he is worried that Nigeria’s prestige in Africa as a major continental power had been diminished” by President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to bring in Western military help, including from the United States. According to the source, Obasanjo supported a prisoner-for-hostage swap that would see some of the girls released in exchange for a group of Boko Haram fighters held in custody.
Mustapha Zanna, the lawyer who helped organise Obasanjo’s September 2011 talks with Boko Haram, said he was at the former president’s home at the weekend. But he declined to discuss whether the Chibok abductions were on the agenda.
“I was there,” he told AFP, adding that Obasanjo was interested in helping orphans and vulnerable children in Nigeria’s embattled northeast and that possible charitable work was on the agenda.
Zanna had represented Yusuf’s family in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the government following his death in police custody. It was not clear if the government had sanctioned Obasanjo’s weekend meeting. Observers say Obasanjo likely does not have the authority to negotiate any deal on the government’s behalf as his ties to the presidency have been damaged.
Recall that Obasanjo has previously sought to negotiate with the leadership of Boko Haram militants in September 2011 after the group bombed the United Nations headquarters in Abuja. Then, he flew to Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, to meet relatives of former Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009.
The 2011 talks did not help stem the violence and some at the time doubted if Obasanjo was dealing with people who were legitimately capable of negotiating a ceasefire. Obasanjo, who backed Jonathan’s 2011 presidential campaign, fiercely criticised him and his record as president in a letter released to the public last December and the two are widely thought to have fallen out.
Cameroon sends troops to Nigerian border
Cameroon has deployed some 1,000 troops and armored vehicles to its border region with Nigeria to counter a rising threat from Boko Haram Islamist militants, the nation’s defense ministry spokesman said yesterday.
“Their mission will be to carry out reconnaissance and be ready to respond with enough fire power,” Lieutenant Colonel Didier Badjeck told Reuters by telephone from Yaounde.
Boko Haram, which outraged international opinion with the abduction of some 200 schoolgirls in northern Nigeria seven weeks ago, has also carried out attacks in northern Cameroon. It is suspected of attacking a Chinese workers camp there this month.
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