Presidency bungled fresh attempt to free Chibok
girls...Why did the high level negotiations
between the Nigerian government team
and Boko Haram insurgents, led by a
former Minister of Information, Edwin
Clark, to secure the release of 220 Chibok
girls, crumble shortly before the Muslim
Sallah holidays in Yola last July?
Knowledgeable sources to the
negotiations, speaking to PREMIUM TIMES
in Abuja, Yola, and Geneva, have offered
rare insights into talks that have come
closest yet to secure freedom for the
abducted girls, and relieve President
Goodluck Jonathan of perhaps the worst
nightmares of his administration.
But the government bungled the process
with its unnecessary exuberant display of
enthusiasm and excessive show of force,
insiders in the talks say.
Parties to the talks have refrained thus far
from sharing thoughts on their
negotiations because as some of them told
this newspaper, “we all agreed to
maintain a code of silence as a way of
helping push the difficult process to a
fruitful resolution and helping this
country heal from the pains of this
insurgency.”
It was the story of a 30-day intense and
often dramatic negotiations that could
have changed the history of the nation,
involving two notable Nigerian civil rights
leaders, Fred Eno, and Shehu Sani, along
with Maiduguri-based lawyer, Mustapha
Zanna, and PDP chieftain, Kaka Bolori,
along with three top officials of the
International Red Cross headquarters
office in Geneva which served as the
“interface” negotiators, and two field
captains of the Boko Haram sect.
In terse responses to PREMIUM TIMES
reporting on their negotiations, however,
some of our sources have responded to
confirm or deny aspects of questions
posed to them, although it appears there
is unanimity in their perception as to why
the Clark Talks finally failed.
“It boils down, basically, to three key
issues: inflexibility and lack of realism on
the part of the insurgent forces; lack of
support for a negotiated settlement to the
insurgency on the part of security forces;
and what appears to be government’s
acceptance that the security forces were
right,” highly placed officials close to the
negotiation told PREMIUM TIMES.
Yola: The Elusive Prize:
There also appears to be agreement
among most of the parties to the
negotiation that the “Yola debacle” was
the decisive point of failure in the talks.
After weeks of tough negotiations, the
two sides finally accepted to what
famously came to be dubbed the
“prisoner swap” of the Chibok girls with
some commanders of the Boko Haram
fighting forces.
Insiders to the talk paid homage to Mr.
Edwin Clark’s wisdom and staying power,
saying he was deft at keeping sometimes
difficult claims in perspective as the
meetings wobbled on and on between
contentious positions of both sides.
On prisoner swap for instance, our
sources say, the insurgents were “initially
modest in their demands, asking for just
10 of their field captains who appear to
have a holding grip on the imagination of
the fighting forces.” At this time, this was
against the whole abducted girls.
While the security forces were combing
detention centres,shopping for the 10
detainees, our sources say something
strange happened, suggesting internal
struggles in the camp of the insurgency
forces. Our sources understood the
“happening” to be a factional
disagreement on the ethnic composition
of the 10 names tabled for the swap.
“They were all of Kanuri nationality and it
appeared the Hausa/Fulani faction
protested this.”
The result of this disagreement was about
one week delay in the negotiations after
which a “new list of 15 was tabled, and
then it was increased to 16”.
The ICRC was then working with security
forces to identify the names on the list. In
this period, it wasn’t clear if security
forces had all the names in demand, a
situation that triggered a new frustration
in the talks, according to our sources.
Were they never captured or were they
killed in battle or extra-judicially?
This development, according to one of
our sources, led discussions along a
frozen path. “We almost lost ten days
again to this but after a meeting at the
Kuje prisons, near Abuja, where Mustapha
Umar, one of the commanders on the list
was held, the government team saw a
new ray of hope.”
However, distrust was now building and
the team of two Boko Haram negotiators
switched the terms of demand from 16
sect commanders for all the girls, to only
30 girls.
But Mr. Clark, according to our sources,
told them there was no realism in their
demands and that if they so cherished
their compatriots, the smartest deal for
them was to release all the girls. At any
rate, Mr. Clark reportedly argued that
such a deal would put President Jonathan
at the butt of a new wave of criticism and
provide fodder for the opposition. So this
was not acceptable, he reportedly
insisted.
“Swap is not our idea but the idea of the
government,“ the Boko Haram negotiators
initially argued, trying to insist on the
high road, but they later deferred to the
age of Mr. Clark, according to our sources.
> At this point also, the ICRC team
clarified the terms of their engagement,
insisting that before the swaps, they
would need clear commitments from the
abducted girls and the detained fighters.
“Prisoners and the girls must offer
consent before the deal can be closed”
ICRC insisted. To get the consent of the
girls the ICRC said they were prepared to
risk going into the enclave of the
insurgency.
The Boko Haram negotiators reportedly
said they were comfortable with this, and
that it will also help “dispel the claims
that the girls were being maltreated or
that they have been forced into marriage
which will shock many people when the
girls return.”
With the Abuja negotiations sealed, Yola,
the Adamawa state capital, was agreed as
the point of swap. Government
negotiators favoured a discreet
arrangement where they would sneak into
Yola, the Red Cross would take custody of
the girls, and in turn yield the Boko
Haram detainees to them and conclude
the swap.
The management of the Yola episode,
according to our sources, put paid to the
whole arrangement. The government, in
an exuberant show of enthusiasm
chartered a Boeing 737 jet to convey the
girls to Abuja from Yola. What was
thought to be a discreet arrangement
turned into a fantasia and loud orchestra
show. Moreover, “when we arrived Yola,
half of the airport was covered with
security forces” noted one of the insiders
to the deal.
“Then they moved negotiators to the
presidential lounge for a two-hour wait…
then 48 hours in the hotel…but Yola had
been infiltrated by these people and the
security presence sent a wrong signal…
clearly these people didn’t trust the
arrangement and they never showed up.”
When contacted Wednesday, some of the
principal actors in the collapsed
negotiation declined to provide details,
saying it’s still premature to divulge
“sensitive details”.
“The whole thing is unfortunate, but
hopefully we can revive the negotiations,”
one of the negotiators, Fred Eno, told
PREMIUM TIMES. “The president
desperately wanted the girls released, but
politics of positioning stood in the way of
progress.”
The President of the Kaduna-based Civil
Rights Congress, Shehu Sani, insisted he
was not comfortable discussing the matter
at this time, suggesting that it was
irrelevant talking about what worked and
what didn’t work at least until the girls
are rescued.
Mr. Clark did not answer or return calls
made to his telephone on Thursday
morning. He also did not respond to a
text message sent to him.
Benoit Matsha-Carpentier, the Senior
Media Officer for the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies, was also unavailable Thursday
morning. He is yet to return calls made to
him.
Spokespersons for the Nigerian
presidency were also unavailable to
provide insight regarding why the
administration acted the way it did in the
final minutes of the negotiation. Reuben
Abati, the Special Adviser to the President
on Media and Publicity, as well as Doyin
Okupe, the senior special assistant on
Public Affairs, didn’t answer or return
calls Thursday morning.
The over 200 girls, mostly teenagers, were
kidnapped from their secondary school in
Chibok, Borno State, on April 14.
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