There have been a lot of deadly boko haram
attacks in the north for two months now and
more than 400 Nigerians have been killed within
this time. This is a ‘disaster’.


A lot of people in the north do not feel safe in
their worship places. They don’t feel safe at
home or at work and they don’t even feel safe
when they go out to the streets. For how long
will people keep living this way and what is
government doing to stop this massacre? President Buhari’s spokesman Femi Adesina,
said last week that the government will consider
negotiating with the terrorists in order to end the
attacks. He said: “Most wars, however furious or vicious,
often end around the negotiation table. So if
boko haram opts for negotiation, the
government will not be averse to it. Government
will, however, not be negotiating from a position
of weakness but that of strength”. Is this the way to go about solving this problem?
Should the government negotiate with the boko
haram and will this stop the bloodshed? A case in point is the Niger Delta militancy that
happened about 10 years ago. A group rose up
and started to kidnap expatriates and bomb oil
facilities to provoke government to address the
problems in the region. The crisis cost the government a lot of money
because it disrupted oil supply, and although the
government fought the militants at first under
Obasanjo, it backed down and sued for peace
later when Late Yar’Adua was president.
Yar’Adua offered the militants an amnesty deal and they surrendered, and soon the crisis was
finished.


That crisis is pretty different from what is
happening now in the north, because the Delta
militants were apparently fighting for a cause
that people believed in. But boko haram is not
like that. These terrorists are killing people to
destabilise the government and seize control so they can cause more ruin. People are getting killed in the north because the
government has not been able to win its fight
against the insurgents. So if a peace talk will end
this frequent bloodshed, a lot of Nigerians
(especially those in the danger zones) will be
happy with the government on that. Boko Haram has killed over 20,000 Nigerians till
date and it still keeps killing people. Negotiating
with these criminals will be a disappointment to
many Nigerians who voted for this current
president, because they believed he would lead
the army to crush the boko haram. More so, last year, reports came up that the boko
haram had decided to negotiate with the
government and hammer out a deal. The so
called peace talk received some hype and there
were positive expectations while it presumably
lasted. But it turned to be a complete sham. There were no peace talks and the terrorists
began pounding the north again soon after the
whole thing ended. Nigerians will be gutted to
see a repeat of that under President Buhari. They
have put too much faith in this administration to
accept anything short of victory against these rouges.



The boko haram apparently is not interested in
making a deal with the government anyway, so
the president’s spokesman was just being
hypothetical. However, what we now know is
that these terrorists are not out to negotiate
peace. They just want to go on killing and destroying. Reportedly the dreaded sect has offered to release the kidnapped Chibok girls in exchange for the militant leaders held by the government.


www.naij.com/485977-should-buhari-negotiate-with-boko-haram.html

He lacks the moral standing to talk about negotiation having openly condemned it in the past.

i want to believe that even if it's the President that suggested negotiation, it is something like a joking stuff!!

If that will guarantee the peace we all crave the i don't mind