Boko Haram says no more dialogue with government....

 

 Boko Haram has become Nigeria's biggest headache of the moment

 

“Let me state here that we will never listen to anyone asking us to enter into any form of dialogue with this government again"
The spokesperson of the extremist Boko Haram sect, Abu Qaqa, on Tuesday said the sect has closed all doors for dialogue with the Federal Government over what it described as the government’s unseriousness and insincerity on the issue.

Mr. Qaqa, who made the declaration via a telephone conference with journalists in Maiduguri, also confirmed that his group approved Datti Ahmed and his group to dialogue with government on its behalf.

“In fact, we only agreed to sit and talk with government because of the respect we have for people like Datti Ahmad in his position as the president of the Sharia Council in Nigeria, but we were very sure the government was not sincere,” Mr. Qaqa said.

The sect’s spokesperson also recalled that President Goodluck Jonathan had earlier called on the group to come out and state their grievances, which according to Mr.  Qaqa, were the unconditional release of all their members arrested.

Mr. Qaqa also added that instead of engaging them in dialogue, security agencies swooped on their representative to the talks, Abu Darda and arrested him, a situation he said made the sect to call off negotiations with government.

“Let me state here that we will never listen to anyone asking us to enter into any form of dialogue with this government again, and I challenge the security agencies to do whatever they can, while we will also do our own,” Mr. Qaqa said.

Reporters asked him a question regarding the fate of the journalist receiving death threat for being the intermediary between the sect and Mr. Ahmed’s committee. He confirmed his group came in contact with the committee through the reporter but quickly added that the reporter concerned and other journalists doing their job professionally were not under threat from the sect.

Mr. Datti Ahmad and his committee had withdrawn from their role as facilitators of dialogue between the Federal Government and the sect over what they described as government’s insincerity on the matter, after some aspects of the discussions were leaked to a foreign media by some representatives of government.