TheCable

There could still be some hope for Nigeria to secure the release of the secondary school girls abducted by Boko Haram from Chibok, Borno State, three weeks ago.

An unnamed intermediary of the group, according to Associated Press, has said Boko Haram is ready to negotiate ransoms for the girls.

The news agency described the man as an Islamic scholar who could not be identified for “sensitive” reasons.

The man did not expatiate on the nature of ransoms or how this could be implemented.

Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State ruled out the payment of ransoms in a recent interview with Daily Trust, pointing out that the country’s anti-terror law makes it illegal.

Hundreds of girls were kidnapped while preparing to write a senior secondary school exam and while 53 have returned home, 276 are still in captivity.

The scholar also said two of the girls have died from snakebite and 20 have fallen ill.

But his claim of negotiation appears to contradict the position of Abubakar Shekau, the group’s leader, who said he was going to sell the girls as slaves.

In a video released Shekau on Monday, he said: “I am the one that took your girls.  Are you the one that created the girls? I will sell them in the market. I have my own market of selling human beings. It is Allah, the owner that instructed me to sell. I will sell the girls.

“Just because I took girls in Western school they are worried. I say the girls should desert the school. They should go and marry. Stupid people. Talking about human rights and democracy. Nonsense. People that are having same-sex marriage and claiming they are leaders.”