ICC Note: Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, invited the United Nations to aid in the exchange of the Chibok schoolgirls for Boko Haram prisoners. Last year, Buhari publicly expressed that the government was ready to negotiate with the terrorist group in the release of the girls through a non-profit organization of their choosing, but Boko Haram did not respond to the proposal. In August, the Islamic militants released a video with several of the girls and stated that some of them had been already killed. Additionally, over the weekend Boko Haram launched an attack targeting and killing eight Christians as they were returning from church near the Chibok village.

9/22/2016, Nigeria (Reuters) – Nigeria’s president said on Thursday he would be open to U.N. bodies coming in to act as intermediaries in any talks with Boko Haram Islamist militants on the release of about 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to free the girls, whose abduction almost two and a half years ago from the northeastern village of Chibok triggered international campaigns and piled pressure on his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan.

Nigeria would “welcome intermediaries such as U.N. outfits, to step in”, Buhari told U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York, a statement issued by the president’s office said.

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