Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian President, insisted last week he would not negotiate, and he has good reason to want people to take that statement entirely at face value. Boko Haram, after all, is one of the most ruthless terrorist organisations on the planet and it would damage the reputation of any government to be seen doing deals with such an odious group. The question, though, is whether Jonathan has any other real option if he wishes to get the missing schoolgirls back alive.
For all that Britain, the US and France have rushed in with offers of spy planes and intelligence assets, the search is far from guaranteed to find the girls, who are most likely to have been split up into small groups and scattered over a vast area. Even if any of those groups can be located, diplomats believe that at the first sign of an armed rescue attempt, Boko Haram will kill its captives immediately — as it did in the joint British-Nigerian effort to free Chris McManus, a British hostage shot dead during a rescue attempt in March 2012.
If the girls are split into separate groups — possibly eight or more — a successful operation to recapture one could lead to immediate reprisals against the others. Somali pirates have already pioneered this technique and it has been successful in keeping special forces’ attacks to a minimum. No government, of course, is anxious to spell out these difficulties too publicly.
However, only last week, US officials privately conceded that a rescue operation was not an option.
That leaves two other options, neither attractive. Option one is to sit it out and hope that Boko Haram might eventually hand the girls back. Even jihadist groups have an image to think about. It might calculate that killing the girls or selling them into slavery could discredit them in the eyes of fellow radicals, making it harder to get outside help when they need it. But that would also amount to doing nothing. Given that Jonathan has already been accused of doing exactly that for the past month, it would not be politically attractive.
Option two is to do a trade, which seems to be what Boko Haram is seeking. Already, the group is making gestures at compromise. Last week, it said it wanted the release of all its prisoners. On Sunday, it said that the demand had been apparently reduced to low-level operatives and the wives and children of fighters.
Human rights groups say the Nigerian government should never have detained wives and children in the first place and that many of the low-level prisoners are either ignorant, brainwashed foot soldiers or innocents caught up in Nigerian army sweeps.
Nigeria, of course, denies that. Right now, though, it may want to think again. For it may just give a fig-leaf of credibility to what in any event will feel like a very dirty deal.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2014
