Senate President, David Mark, on Tuesday insisted that the Federal Government would not negotiate with the Boko Haram insurgents for release of the over 200 school girls abducted in Chibok, Borno State on April 14.
The leader of the sect, Abubakar Shekau, had in a video message released on Monday and showing the abducted girls for the first time since their abduction, vowed that the girls would only be released if government agrees to swap them for detained members of the group in various cells across the country.
Shekau had said: “These are the girls abducted by our fighters and whose release the Nigerian government has been calling for. We won’t release them to you and you can’t take them away from us no matter how you try.
“We would only release them if you, the government release our brothers you have arrested and detained for four to five years now.”
Mark while reacting to Shekau’s demands in Beijing, China, told reporters that government would never negotiate with the terrorists.
Mark insisted that negotiating with terrorists as proposed by Shekau over the abducted girls, would not help the nation but would rather give the insurgents room to wreck more havoc on both the country and its people without fulfilling the terms of agreement that may have been reached with them.
Mark said: “Nigeria will not negotiate with terrorists under any circumstance because you don’t negotiate with criminals which the Boko Haram insurgents are.
“We are going to bring the girls back safe and sound for their parents without any negotiation with Boko Haram as every effort towards that which cannot be disclosed in the public, is being made to rescue the girls.”