Updates from the federal government on its efforts to secure the release of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls have become scarce and many of those who championed the call to secure their release have grown silent in recent times, almost resigned to the fact that the girls might never be found.
However, Saturday Independent learnt that International Committee of the Red Cross has been involved in a secret prisoner swap deal to secure the release of the girls.
Corroborating the development is a report by The Telegraph of the United Kingdom. According to the British tabloid, officials from the Geneva-based organisation have sat in on talks between the Nigerian government and a senior Boko Haram leader currently held in one of the country’s maximum security prisons.
The Red Cross officials have also visited a number of other jails, identifying 16 senior commanders that Boko Haram wants freed in exchange for its hostages.
The group is thought to be holding more than 220 schoolgirls captive, having kidnapped them from the North-East town of Chibok in mid-April.
The ICRC’s role in the talks represents the first official confirmation that the Nigerian government is actively engaged in talks with Boko Haram over the release of the girls. Publicly, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan has maintained that the government would never agree to any kind of negotiations.
The ICRC, whose global remit includes prisoners’ welfare, has agreed to act as an independent party in ensuring that the two sides, neither of which trusts the other, honour any prisoner swap agreement. It has also offered to monitor and oversee any co-ordinated exchange of the schoolgirls for the militants.
