* Jonathan
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has disclosed that Boko Haram insurgents once nominated ex-President Muhammadu Buhari to represent them in peace talks with the Federal Government.
Jonathan made the revelation on Friday in Abuja at the public presentation of Scars, a book authored by former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor (retd.).
According to Jonathan, his administration had constituted several committees to explore dialogue with the insurgents, and in one instance, they specifically named Buhari as their preferred negotiator.
Negotiation That Never Happened
“One of the committees we set up then, the Boko Haram nominated Buhari to lead their team to negotiate with the government,” Jonathan said.
He added that, given that nomination, he expected Buhari’s presidency would have found it easier to secure the insurgents’ surrender, but the violence persisted.
Jonathan stressed that Boko Haram’s resilience underscored the complexity of the crisis.
“If you conduct research and interview many people, you will only get part of the story, but never the full story of Boko Haram. I thought that after I left, within a reasonable time, General Buhari would wipe them out. But even today, Boko Haram is still there,” he said.
He argued that the group’s access to sophisticated weapons suggested external involvement far beyond poverty-driven violence.
Jonathan described the 2014 abduction of Chibok schoolgirls as “a scar I will die with.”
He urged the government to consider a carrot-and-stick strategy and called for military officers and even insurgent leaders to document their experiences for history.
Boko Haram, which emerged in Borno State in the early 2000s, became a full-blown insurgency after the killing of its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, in 2009. The group escalated attacks with bombings, mass abductions and assaults on both civilians and the military.
In 2012, reports circulated that Boko Haram had indeed listed Buhari among trusted northern leaders for peace talks, though Buhari publicly rejected the offer, accusing Jonathan’s government of dragging his name into the conflict for political reasons.
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