– Envoys met Boko Haram –
Mustapha Zanna, the lawyer who helped organise Obasanjo’s 2011 talks with Boko Haram, said he was at the former president’s home on Saturday.
But he declined to discuss whether the Chibok abductions were on the agenda.
“I was there,” he told AFP, adding that Obasanjo was interested in helping orphans and vulnerable children in Nigeria’s embattled northeast and that possible charitable work was on the agenda.
Zanna had represented Yusuf’s family in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the government following his death in police custody.
It was not clear if Obasanjo’s weekend meeting had been sanctioned by the government. READ: African leaders to discuss kidnapped Nigerian girls.
Obasanjo, who backed Jonathan’s 2011 presidential campaign, fiercely criticised him and his record as president in a letter released to the public last December and the two are widely thought to have fallen out.
According to the source, Obasanjo supported a prisoner-for-hostage swap that would see some of the girls released in exchange for a group of Boko Haram fighters held in Nigerian custody.
As a private citizen whose ties to the presidency have been damaged, Obasanjo likely does not have the authority to negotiate any deal on the government’s behalf.
The government, which has officially ruled out a prisoner swap, sent intermediaries to meet Boko Haram in the northeast to negotiate for the girls’ release.
The source identified one of the envoys as Ahmad Salkida, a journalist with ties to Boko Haram who had been close to Yusuf before his death.
“There was contact but it was bungled by the government,” according to the source, saying Jonathan backed away from the deal after returning from a security conference in Paris earlier this month.
The conference saw Nigeria and its neighbours vow greater co-operation to tackle Boko Haram because of the potential threat to regional stability.
The chief of defence staff on Monday said that despite having located the girls, the risks of storming the area with troops in a rescue mission were too great and could prove fatal for the hostages.
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