Should FG Swap Abducted Girls For Boko Haram Prisoners?

The militant Islamic sect, Boko Haram, has said it will not free the over 200 girls it abducted from the Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State unless the Federal Government releases its detained members.

The group’s leader, Sheikh Abubakar Shekau, in a 27-minute video made public on Monday, claimed that he was commanded by Allah to kidnap the girls.

In the video, the girls dressed in hijab are shown reciting a verse of the Holy Koran, indicating that majority of them converted to Islam.

The video is the first time the girls who were kidnapped from their school hostel on April 14 will be shown to the public.

The terrorist leader, who dressed in camouflage and held an AK-47 rifle close to his chest, wondered why there was so much global outcry over the abduction of the girls.

Speaking in Arabic and Hausa, Shekau said besides the girls whose actual number he did not give, there were many kidnapped men and women in the sect’s custody.

He also boasted that no force could trace the whereabouts of the girls let alone their rescue until the terror group’s condition was met.

“All I’m saying is if you want us to release your girls that we kidnapped, you must release our brethren that are held in Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Lagos and Enugu. We know that you have incarcerated our brethren all over this country (Nigeria),” the Agence France Presse quoted him as saying in the video.

He added, “There are some of my brethren who have spent five complete years without seeing their wives, without seeing their children. For God’s sake, even for ensuring their release, will I not kidnap? After all Allah says I should kidnap.

“You that seized and detained my brethren for five years, you arrested and kept a woman without getting married for four, five years, you seized and hold our children.

“You did all these to us and today because we did what Allah already told us to do and you are busy making noise ‘Shekau has kidnapped this and that, he said he would sell’. Yes I will sell.

“I will sell. Those of them that have not accepted Islam, they are now gathered in numbers. They are staying with us. We will never release them until our brethren are released.”

The AP reported that “families have said most girls abducted are Christians but the about 100 shown under a tree in the video recite Muslim prayers in Arabic. Many are barefoot. Some appear fearful, others desolate.”

Do you think FG should swap the girls?