BUHARI TO NIGER DELTA MILITANTS: Accept dialogue or face war

· Lists new conditions for talks with Boko Haram

· Confirms Shekau wounded

President Muhammadu Buhari has urged mil­itants in the Niger Delta region to ac­cept dialogue or face military action.

The President warned that his administration would not continue to watch helpless­ly as a few aggrieved persons destroyed the country’s oil in­frastructure when the issues at stake could be resolved through dialogue.

The President spoke in Nairobi, Kenya, with journal­ists on the side-line of the sixth Tokyo International Confer­ence on African Development (TICAD VI).

 

He said the Federal Gov­ernment was open to dialogue with the Niger Delta militants to resolve all contending issues in the oil-rich area.

 

Buhari said: ‘‘We do not believe that they (militants) have announced a ceasefire. We are trying to understand them more; who are their leaders and which areas do they operate and other rele­vant issues?”

 

Also at bilateral talks with the Prime Minister of Japan during the conference, Bu­hari declared that if the Niger Delta militants refused to ne­gotiate with his government, he would crush them the same way he crushed Boko Haram.

 

He told the Japanese lead­er that with the defeat of the Boko Haram terrorists by the military, the attention of the administration was now fo­cused on stopping the de­struction of the country’s eco­nomic assets by militants in the Niger Delta region.

“We are talking to some of their leaders. We will deal with them as we dealt with Boko Haram if they refuse to talk to us.

“As a government, we know our responsibility which is to secure the environment. It is clear to us that lenders won’t fund projects in an in­secure environment.

“We realise that we have to secure the country before we can efficiently manage it,” the President said, while he assured existing and prospec­tive foreign investors that their investments in Nigeria will be protected.

He also noted that the Fed­eral Government was ready to negotiate with the leadership of the Boko Haram terrorists through any international­ly-recognised Non-Govern­mental Organisation (NGO) if they are not ready to talk directly with the government.

On the overtures to Boko Haram insurgents, Buhari said that his new position was how far the Federal Govern­ment would go to discuss the release of the Chibok girls kid­napped by the sect since April 14, 2014.

The President added that his administration would only dialogue with bona fide lead­ers of the terror group who know the whereabouts of the girls.

Buhari declared that “the government which I preside over is prepared to talk to bona fide leaders of Boko Har­am,” because he was not pre­pared to waste time and re­sources with doubtful sources claiming to know the wherea­bouts of the girls.

“If they do not want to talk to us directly, let them pick an internationally rec­ognised Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), 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.

‘‘If they do it through the ‘modified leadership’ of Boko Haram and they talk with an internationally recognised NGO, then Nigeria will be prepared to discuss their re­lease,” he said.

Stressing the need for talks with only credible lead­ers of Boko Haram, the Presi­dent said: “The person known in Nigeria as their leader, we understand was edged out and the Nigerian members of Boko Haram started surren­dering themselves to the Ni­gerian military.

“We learnt that in an air strike by the Nigerian Air Force he was wounded. In­deed, their top hierarchy and lower cadre have a problem and we know this because when we came into power, they were holding 14 of the 774 local government areas in Nigeria. But now they are not holding any territory and they have split to smaller groups at­tacking soft targets.”

He also announced that the Federal Government would sustain concrete meas­ures to diversify the economy by devoting more resourc­es to agriculture in the 2017 Budget.

“Besides, there is still more to do on education, health and other infrastructure to ensure quick and voluntary return of displaced persons to their na­tive communities”, he added.