Nigerian Information Minister Alhaji Mohammed said the government is doing all it can to try to release the girls, but it needs to be careful about who it communicates with now that the group has split in two.
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The Nigerian military says releasing Boko Haram fighters in exchange for abducted Chibok schoolgirls is a “political decision” beyond its powers.
The announcement came just a day after Boko Haram released a new video purportedly showing some of the more than 200 girls who were seized by Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria in April 2014.
“There are a number of the girls, about 40 of them, that have been married”, said the man in the 11-minute video.
Colonel Sani Usman, the acting director on army public relations, has released an update on operation Lafiya Dole this Monday.
Mr Salkida is said to have high-level contacts among the group’s leaders and is believed to have been involved in failed talks between Boko Haram and the government of former president Goodluck Jonathan.
In the video, one veiled girl could be seen holding a baby, while unidentified bodies could be seen on the ground. This video, the first after several months seem to prove that numerous girls are still alive, showing what their spokesman claimed were bodies of girls killed by airstrikes.
“When I heard her voice, I realised she is my daughter”, Kanu Yakubu said.
Esther Yakubu broke down in tears as she saw her daughter’s face for the first time in more than two years. “It is extremely hard and rare to hit innocent people during airstrike [s] because the operations is done through precision attack on identified and registered targets and locations”, said Abubakar in a statement reported by Premium Times.
Salkida, who said the Army was declaring him wanted for simply carrying out his professional duties, added that he did most of his work with “total allegiance and sacrifice to the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
There was no comment from the government or the military about the video, although President Muhammadu Buhari said a year ago that he was open to negotiating with the group.
She said this action has put her immediate and extended family under a lot of pressure that she does not deserve from the Nigerian government.
The mass abduction in April 2014 brought Boko Haram to the world’s attention and even got the participation of USA first lady Michelle Obama in the #Bring Back Our Girls social media campaign, promising her husband would do all in his power to help liberate them.
This undated image taken from video distributed Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016, shows an alleged Boko Haram soldier standing in front of a group of girls alleged to be some of the 276 abducted Chibok schoolgirls held sinc.
Her mother spoke exclusively to the BBC about what her daughter’s life was like under the militant group.
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Wakil claimed she had previously approached the military to help secure the freedom of the girls but her offers were spurned.
