Jonathan speaks again

Former Nigerian president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has denied claims that his administration had some negotiations with the terro-group, Boko Haram.
While addressing a conference at the press centre of the Cercle Diplomatic in Gneva, Jonathan said: “We did not negotiate
with  fake  Boko Haram. I agree that within that period, especially whenever there was a  problem, people volunteered all manner of assistance. It is just like what, my successor,  President Buhari said in a recent media chat that if his government gets  credible leaders of the sect, they would be willing to discuss with them.”
The former-president further informed that: “People will come to you with all kinds of names. But my  government never set up a team  to negotiate with Boko Haram.  We found out that  the activities of the terrorists were coming from a section of the country, the northeast, and they  were more active in two states, Borno and Yobe.”
Jonathan went on to tell the conference that due to the high rate of insurgent attacks within the two states, Borno and Yobe have the worst  cases  in terms of children’s school drop-out rate with more than 50 percent drop-out rate. Noting hat this high  rate of out-of-school children  speaks to the issue of the prevalence of insurgency in the states.
He further claimed that his government set up a committee of senior people in the states to hold conversations with all stakeholders including community leaders, religious leaders and all other interest groups.
Their mandate he informed was to hold conversations with these groups towards finding a local solution to the problem.
“There was never a time we negotiated with Boko Haram”Jonathan debated, labeling the accusations as false.
“I think this whole idea is all politics.  The world over, people do and say all kinds of things in the name of politics. But then it  is wrong for people to play politics with very serious national issues,” Jonathan warned.
He however, added that the only group his government negotiated with, was the Niger-Delta militants. The Otuoke-politician informed that the negotiations began when he was serving as deputy-governor of Bayelsa state.
“I believe that if we had negotiated with Boko Haram, we would have come out with an action programme in that regard. When we negotiated with Niger Delta militants, we were able to do that because you could identify them and they had a clear position on all the issues.
In that case we were able to come  out with what we called the  amnesty programme which brought about the end of militancy in that part of our country where crude oil is being produced. We  asked the militants  to surrender their weapons in exchange for their rehabilitation. We engaged them with relevant training and placed many of them on a monthly allowance.
Some of them were trained outside Nigeria and some were encouraged to set up businesses and so on. For a negotiation to take place there should be certain expectations from both sides,” Jonathatn informed.

“We just couldn’t negotiate with the terrorists because such expectations could not be established,” GEJ stressed.

Jonathan who recently said he would be willing to give selfless service under the present generation, concluded that “anybody who says that we negotiated with Boko haram during my time is merely playing politics”.
Meanwhile, Jonathan has refused to make any concrete statements regarding the ongoing arms deal trials within the country. The former commander-in-chief said he would remain silent on the issue for while, but will surely ensure that Nigerians get his version of the story in a no distant time.