If Boko Haram isn’t defeated by Dec, I’ll stay to fight it out – Buhari

Eighteen months after more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram from Chibok, a largely Christian populated remote town in Borno State, North-East Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari
has for the umpteenth time pledged to defeat the Islamist armed group by December this year, adding that his government is willing to negotiate to secure the girls’ release.

Buhari, who spoke to Al Jazeera English’s Mehdi Hasan in a wide- ranging and exclusive interview with the tv’s flagship current affairs show, ‘UpFront’, reiterated his pledge to defeat Boko Haram by
December, but also acknowledged he would be willing to negotiate with the group to secure the release of the kidnapped Chibok
schoolgirls.

The President in the interview which Headliner preview was monitored by Vanguard, said: “They (Boko Haram) have to prove to us that they (Chibok grils) are alive, they are well, and then we can…
negotiate with them,” President Buhari told ‘UpFront’ host Mehdi Hasan. “We said it and we meant it. If we are satisfied that the girls are alive.”

When asked whether he would offer financial payments, or a prisoner release, to Boko Haram in return for the girls, Buhari did not rule out either option. “Well it depends on the negotiations with
the leadership of Boko Haram.”
The President has pledged to defeat Boko Haram by the end of 2015
and told Hasan: “As soon as the rainy season comes, which is by the
end of the year […] Boko Haram will virtually be out of their main
stronghold and that will be the end of it [….]
Attacks by Boko Haram on townships, on military installations, will certainly stop.”
If Boko Haram isn’t defeated by December, however, Buhari said he “will not resign”.
“I will be determined to stay and fight it out.” The President claimed not to have seen the Amnesty International
report from June 2015, ‘Nigeria: Stars on their shoulders: Blood on
their hands’, in which the human-rights group documented abuses,
torture and unlawful killings by the Nigerian armed forces and urged
the government to prosecute a group of officers and senior
commanders.
“I haven’t received that report personally,” said Buhari, “If I get
those documents… I assure you that I will take action as
Commander in Chief.”
In the past, Buhari has been quoted as saying he supports “the total
implementation of the sharia in the country” but he told ‘UpFront’
that “Nigerian law does not allow for” so-called sharia punishments,
such as stonings and amputations, adding, “I cannot change it. I
haven’t been voted by [a] majority of Nigerians to change Nigerian
constitution.”
Asked about his record as a military dictator in the mid-1980s, and
the alleged human-rights abuses which occurred on his watch, Buhari
said: “If there is any injustice that can be proved against me when I
was there, I will gladly apologize.”
The president refused, however, to concede that his now-notorious
‘war against indiscipline’ in the 1980s featured any such “injustice”.