Nigeria’s president flat out rejected a deal to free the 300 kidnapped schoolgirls — even after watching a video in which the terrified victims begged him to save their lives with a prisoner exchange, a published report said Tuesday.
Sources said the heartbreaking video was delivered to President Goodluck Jonathan by an intermediary who had connections to Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorists who snatched the girls on April 15, The Telegraph reported.
But Jonathan scuttled a tentative deal that called for the girls’ release last week after Western governments pressured him not to negotiate with terrorists because it would only encourage more kidnappings, the paper said, citing a source.
“The government said to the intermediary to prove himself to show whether he was capable of brokering a deal or not, and insisted that he should obtain proof of life of the hostages,” the source said.
“So during his talks with the insurgents, he obtained a DVD which had clips of girls being interviewed by members of the group, in which they asked President Jonathan to do a prisoner swap to get them freed,” the source said.
“That DVD was shown to the government, and a deal was arranged so that the girls would have been released a week ago on Monday, but at last minute the government backed out.”
The video was different from one released earlier in which about 100 of the girls — clad in traditional Muslim hijabs and chanting Koran verses in Arabic — claimed to have converted to Islam.
About 50 of the girls would have been swapped for an equal number of Boko Haram fighters who had earlier been captured by the government, the source said.
But the Nigerian government denied any deal was in the works, and would not confirm whether Jonathan had seen the video.
The report came as a top Nigerian official said the government knows where the girls are being held but was not planning a rescue for fear the hostages would be executed during the operation.
Staff Air Marshal Alex Badeh said Monday it was “good news for the parents” but that the military was not “going there with force.”
But other officials doubted the claim, noting that the military had made previous statements about the girls that later proved to be untrue, including a claim that troops were on their trail since the kidnapping.
The Telegraph identified the intermediary who handed over the tape as Nigerian journalist Ahmed Salkid from the northeastern state of Borno, a Boko Haram stronghold where the girls attended school.
Salkid and a cleric then made their way to the remote bushland areas where the group operates and met with an assistant of Boko Haram’s fanatical leader, Abubakar Shekau.
The source said the government backed out after a meeting in Paris the weekend of May 17 in which Jonathan discussed the kidnapping with US, British and French officials — all of whom opposed the exchange.
“They seem to be afraid that if they do a prisoner swap, they will lose the support of the West,” the source said.
The US and other Western nations have opposed dealing with Boko Haram, which has murdered thousands of civilians in recent years — including nearly 500 since the girls’ kidnapping.
The DVD remains in the possession of the Nigerian government and has not been released publicly, the source added.
Boko Haram — which translates to “Western education is sinful” — believes Western influences have corrupted Nigerian society, and wants to install an Islamic state under strict Shariah law.
Nigeria’s population of 170 million people is divided almost equally between Christians and Muslims.