Apart from handing over five
prominent terrorists to Boko Haram in exchange for the release of 82 Chibok
girls recently, €2m was also paid to the terrorist group, the British Broadcasting Corporation
reports.
President Muhammadu Buhari
was alleged to have been reluctant in approving the disbursement of the money.
According to the BBC, the money paid in
cash was handed over to the insurgents in exchange for the release of the
girls.
The report noted that the
five senior Boko Haram militants were bomb-makers.
It noted further that it
took a lot of convincing to get Buhari to approve the money.
“It should have happened
sooner, but the President was hesitating about freeing the five (commanders) –
and especially about the money,” the BBC quoted a source with detailed
knowledge of the deal, as saying.
“The issue of the money was
the most difficult part of the whole negotiation. He didn’t want to pay any
money. The ransom was €2m. Boko Haram asked for euros. They chose the suspects
and gave us the list of girls who would be freed,” the source added.
The online medium noted that
the claim could not be independently verified.
The report added that though
there were setbacks during the negotiation, trust was gradually built on both
sides.
A human rights lawyer, Zanna
Mustapha, was part of the negotiations, and was the key middleman in the
release of the 82 Chibok girls.
With more than a hundred
Chibok girls still being held, efforts to get them released are continuing.
There are thought to be at
least 13 more Boko Haram commanders in the Federal Government’s custody who
could be exchanged.
Speaking on the money paid
by the Presidency, a retired military officer, Col. Olusegun Oloruntoba,
pointed out that no amount of money or sacrifice was too much to bring back the
Chibok girls.
“No amount of money can buy
a life; how much more that of 82 young lives. The ransom paid is in favour of
Nigeria and the Chibok girls’ family in particular. I urge the Federal
Government to go ahead and make whatever sacrifice it takes to effect the
release of the remaining Chibok girls.”
However, the Minister of
Information and Culture, Mr. Lai Mohammed, during an interview with one of our
correspondents on Saturday, denied the allegations that the Federal Government
paid a ransom of €2m for the release of 82 Chibok schoolgirls.
The minister said only five
Boko Haram commanders were released in exchange for the girls.
He said, “I emphatically
deny on behalf of the Federal Government that any form of ransom was paid in
exchange for the release of the 82 Chibok girls.
“Apart from the five Boko
Haram commanders, the exchange of which we had already made public, no other
concession was made. Any other thing to the contrary is absolutely false.”