A mine planted by Boko Haram terrorist group exploded under a Chadian military vehicle and killed four servicemen on board, media reported on Saturday, citing a source in the country’s security service, Sputnik International reported.
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Speaking at a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on the sidelines of the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Nairobi, Kenya, President Buhari outlined several steps taken by his administration to secure the country and ease doing business in Nigeria.
Any negotiations would be the first publicly known talks between the Nigerian government and Boko Haram, whose seven-year insurgency to create a state in the country’s northeast has killed 15,000 people.
I reiterated it in Nairobi, that we want our Chibok girls safe, we want them out.
Last year, Buhari had said that his government was ready to negotiate with the group but the militant outfit did not respond to the proposal. “The faster we can recover them and hand them over to their parents, the better for us”, Buhari added. Critics of Buhari’s predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, said his government was too slow to act. Dozens escaped in the initial melee, but more than 200 are still missing.
President Muhammadu Buhari says his administration will not waste time and resources on doubtful intelligence claiming to know the location of the abducted Chibok girls. “If they do not want to talk to us directly, let them pick an internationally recognised Non-Governmental Organisation, convince them that they are holding the girls and that they want Nigeria to release a number of Boko Haram leaders in detention, which they are supposed to know”. The military said Shekau had been “fatally wounded” but stopped short of saying that he was dead.
The Friday incident is the latest in the series of attacks on Chadian soldiers by Boko Haram extremists.
“We learnt that in an air strike by the Nigeria Air Force he was wounded”, Buhari said, as quoted by the Daily Nigeria News newspaper. Shekau has insisted he is still in charge.
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President Buhari told the summit, attended by the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, some 35 African leaders and chief executives of at least 80 major companies from Japan, that global cooperation with Nigeria was central in the decimation of Boko Haram terror group.
