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Tayo Olanipekun
Negotiations for release of Leah Sharibu may be futile once she gets pregnant in Boko Haram captivity, a journalist with sources among the insurgents has said.
Even when Sharibu, the remaining of the Dapchi girls, held for her Christian faith, gives birth, she cannot be separated with her baby until the child turns seven, the journalist, Ahmad Salkida, added in a series of tweets Thursday afternoon.
The alternatives at that time will be “narrowed to only a military rescue operation,” according to Salkida, citing how Boko Haram are notorious for keeping their “most prized captives out of the radar” for territorial control.
He said the insurgents are not holding on to Sharibu because of her faith but because of the fact she is a daughter to a police officer and that the aid workers were abducted inside a military facility during a raid, not in an IDP Camp, where they may have no problems overrunning.
“As appalling as this may sound, ones (once) a slave girl missed her menstrual circle, there may not be any negotiations for her release, and when the slave gives birth, she cannot be separated with her under 7yo child, the alternatives are narrowed to only a military rescue operation,” he wrote.
Sharibu’s abductors had vowed to keep her in slavery in a message to the general public after they killed a second humanitarian worker, following a failed negotiation with the authority.
Salkida said the barbaric killings of the abducted aid workers and the “slavery status” of Sharibu and Alice, the remaining aid worker, are not because the government no longer wants to pay ransom, explaining that it was evident that the deadlock was “mainly a credibility gap.”
He, however, noted that the government could not find the much needed expertise with access to the insurgents that can explore alternatives to ransom payments.
The journalist also pointed to the failure of the government to vary its approach in dealing with the insurgents.
“The strategy that worked yesterday, may not necessarily work today. It is much easier to succeed in a ransom deal, than when given the task of a robust process, limited to prisoner swap.
“In the past, BH got deals that was more favourable to them, which clearly undermined military targets and objectives. They expected no less this time, but the state was adamant, but because of the limited options available to government, the executions could not be deferred or averted,” he explained.
Amina Liman and Alice Loksha working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were abducted by Boko Haram on March 1 during an attack on Rann, on Nigeria’s far north-eastern border.
Liman was executed last week after another abducted aid worker, Saifura Hussaini Ahmed, was killed last month by her abductors.
