Chibok girls: Consider swap deal with Boko Haram, Iloh urges FG

Former chairman of Nigerian Red Cross Society and the Nigerian Cycling Association, Rev. (Dr.) Moses Iloh, has urged the Federal Government to consider a prisoner swap deal with Boko Haram as a way of freeing over 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted by the insurgents.
Boko Haram had indicated its willingness to release the girls if the Federal Government freed its  brethren being detained in various facilities across the country.
Rev. Iloh, who expressed worry over the plight of the innocent schoolgirls during a press briefing in Lagos, noted that swapping the girls with Boko Haram was not a sign  of weakness on the part of the government but a mark of value of lives of the girls.
“I strongly urge Mr. President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, to give serious and urgent consideration to the idea of swapping our precious daughters–more than 200 of them and save them from defilement. Such action on the part of government is not defeatist. Rather, it will show that government is capable of differentiating between good and evil and willing to opt for good.”
On what should be done for the schoolgirls when they are eventually released, Rev. Iloh said: “The Federal Government should take them abroad for proper medical examination to know the state of their health.
“Thereafter, they should be put in school and fully taken care of by the government. Government ought to grant them scholarship once they are rescued alive.
“It might be a good idea for the government to also decide the appropriate compensation to pay their parents for the psychological trauma they have suffered all the while.”
The 84-year-old cleric traced the root of the country’s current travail to what he identified as falsehood, confusion and terror, which he said, had deep spiritual roots in the affairs of the nation.
His words: “Nigeria is currently subjected to a fierce, three-pronged attack, whose spikes are falsehood, confusion and terror. The situation is rather complex because they are products of spiritual defilement.”
He said that the identified evils had contributed so much to destroying the defenseless and oppressed people, urging that, “Nigerians must engage in fervent and unrelenting prayer,” to overcome them.
He also identified corruption as part of the biggest problems facing the country and urged government to seek to end it, warning that unless the hydra-headed monster was fought and conquered every effort geared towards developing the country would not yield the desired result.
To tackle corruption in Nigeria, he said the only way out was either a revolution in the mode what Jerry Rawlings did in Ghana or civil disobedience.
He urged political leaders not to balkanise the country but to work hard to ensure that equity and fairness were enthroned in the polity. He said every part of the country ought to experience Federal Government developmental strides because some states were rich while some others were poor.