How we negotiated Chibok girls’ freedom

How we negotiated Chibok girls’ freedom’

Says: We’ll employ same strategy to rescue other girls

A key player in the negotiation that led to Thursday’s release of 21
of the Chibok schoolgirls on Friday spoke on the effort that went
into the deal.
Vocal civil liberty activist, Senator Shehu Sani drafted the master
plan for the negotiation and facilitated the involvement of
Switzerland in the talks as well as the Internantional Red Cross in
transporting the girls to safety.
He told The Nation that with the confidence built on both sides,it
might not be long before the remaining girls joined their families.
His words: “I believe  that this government has achieved what has
never been achieved and there I have the  confidence that the other
girls will also be released through the same process that was taken
for these ones to be released.
“The confidence has been built on both sides and the parties have
agreed to do more.  I can tell you that there was no prisoner swap.
There was none.”
Explaining his role in the release of the girls,Sani said : “Well I
actually did not take part in the negotiation but I was the one who
drafted the master plan for the negotiation, and I was also the one
who invited the Swiss and the RCRC into it, and I was also the one
who linked the Swiss with the person who negotiated .
“This  master plan started from 2014 but it was followed through
with the effort of the person who negotiated ,who happened to be
Mustapha Zanna, a lawyer in Maiduguri.  I was the one who brought
Mustapha  Zanna in with Switzerland and the RCRC.
“So this effort ,this success , could be said to be the joint  effort of
Mustapha Zanna,Switzerland RCRC and the Department of State
Security (DSS).
“But I was the one who drafted the master plan  for this. The
reason for bringing Swiss into it was because we needed to have a
different country that would offer guarantee to both  the insurgents
and the government because previous talks crashed because there
was lack of  trust between the government and the insurgents.
“But now, we needed a country that would offer guarantee to both
sides.  Switzerland offered to assist after I had encountered
fellows from some of  the countries which we had contacted.
“Swiss offered to facilitate the negotiation  and I linked them up to
the negotiator and the master plan was for the government and the
insurgents to negotiate.
Continuing,Sani said: “The agreement was reached through
Mustapha Zanna and the Swiss offering the guarantee. RCRC was
not part of the negotiation team. All they did was to ensure the
implementation of  the rescue of the girls.
“This is why you see some accusations and counter accusations
between the government and the RCRC.”
Asked how he was involved in the 2014 process when he wasn’t
sure that his party (All Progressives Congress) would form the
government, Sani replied:  “ I was the one who took  (former
President Olusegun) Obasanjo to Maiduguri to go and work out the
possibility of  ending  the insurgency.
“It is simply my patriotic zeal to contribute to ending the
insurgency.  The last government was not as committed as this
government as you could see many of them turn the issue of the
insurgency into a big business.  But this is a new government that
kept its own promise of addressing this very problem.”
On how the girls should be handled now that they are out of
captivity the Senator said: “These girls need a lot of psychological
rehabilitation for the trauma which they have passed through for  all
this period of time.
“If you live with the insurgents, you need to b rehabilitated to lead a
normal life again. They have been filled with different ideas, so we
need to detoxify their minds for the very fact that they felt
abandoned; some of them have been brainwashed and
indoctrinated.  This is why we need to de-worm them. It is very
necessary.
“We should all help the parents of these girls to be able to cater for
their daughters because at the end of the day, no matter what we
do to these girls, they will still need to go back to their homes.
“It will not be unwise  for every state of the federation to at least
name one street  in honour of these girls so that next generation
will not forget  the names of these girls who have fallen victim of
insurgents.”