Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said on Thursday that he could reach out to the more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram insurgents, but regretted that the Federal Government had yet to give him the green light to act.
Obasanjo, in an interview on the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation monitored in Kaduna, however, did not say if he had made formal request to the government to
intervene.
"I have ways of reaching them(Boko Haram) but I have not been given the go ahead," he added.
The former President however expressed fear that some of the schoolgirls may never return home but added that the insurgents might free those found to be pregnant or have given birth.
"I believe that some of them will never return. We will still be hearing about them many years from now, some will give birth to children of the Boko Haram.members, but if they cannot take care of them in the forest, they may release them."
He also expressed worry that the girls might have been separated and kept in different locations.
Obasanjo had previously tried to negotiate with the insurgents, especially in September 2011 after members of the sect bombed the United Nations headquarters in Abuja.
He flew to Maiduguri, Borno State where he met with relatives of the Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf, who the police had illegally killed in their custody in 2009.
Obasanjo spoke on the heels of a Ministerial Meeting on Security in Northern Nigeria holding in London.
Source: Punch
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