It has come to light that the President of Chad, Idris Deby, was responsible for arranging the meeting that led to the ceasefire agreement between the Federal Government and Boko Haram.
According to reports from the cable.ng, members of the sect reached out to the Chadian President via letters on two occassions between July and August 2014 asking him to arrange a ceasefire deal between themselves and the government of Nigeria.
Deby was then said to have passed the message across to his security agencies to authenticate the genuineness of the letter.
The Chadian security agencies in collaboration with other global intelligence outfit scrutinised the letter, confirmed its authenticity and passed it across to the President Deby.
On receiving the confirmation, Deby reached out to his NIgerian counterpart, Goodluck Jonathan, and set up a meeting during the ICT conference in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad.
On 9 September, both Presidents met behind closed doors where Jonathan was informed of the developments.
Jonathan was then said to have told Deby he wasn’t opposed to negotiations with the terror sect.
On receiving Jonathan’s approval, the Chadian President ordered the head of his intelligence unit to arrange a team to meet and negotiate with the insurgents, while Jonathan nominated Hassan Tukur, his principal secretary, to represent Nigeria in the talks.
According to sources who spoke to the Cable.ng, the negotiations took place in N’Djamena for several weeks and witnessed several deadlocks based on the demands made by the sect, one of which was that their members shouldn’t be put on trial for their crimes.
The Nigerian government first demand was the immediate release of the Chibok girls, to which the sect agreed to but said they would be released in batch because they had been scattered all over West Africa.
The sect demanded the release of their detained women and children who are being held for aiding the them in their campaign of violence.
“The most difficult part of the negotiation was the way forward. They expressed fears that the government may not keep its own part of the bargain as soon as they release the girls. By releasing 70 girls first, they want to watch how the rest of the bargain goes,” said a source to TheCable.
The sect having being satisfied with the assurances from the government’s negotiating agreed to declare a ceasefire and release the girls.
The five-year Boko Haram insurgency has led to the death of over 10,000.
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