by ‘Jola Sotubo

An Australian negotiator, who was hired by the Nigerian government to broker the release of the over 200 Chibok girls being held captive by Boko Haram, has said that most of the girls are already outside the country.

Stephen Davis is said to have advised three Nigerian presidents on how to negotiate with militant groups and he has been involved in the struggle to free the girls for the past one month.

He said:

‘The vast majority of the Chibok girls are not being held in Nigeria. They are in camps across the Nigerian border in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. I say the “vast majority” as I know a small group was confirmed to me to be in Nigeria last week when we sought to have them released.’

Daily Mail reports:

He described how fraught the negotiation process has been.

‘One of that small group of girls is ill and we had hoped we might convince the commander of the group holding her that she should be released so we could give her medical treatment,’ Dr Davis said.

‘There are other girls who are not well and we have come close to having them released but their captors fear a trap in which they will be captured in the handover process.

‘One girl has what I assume is a broken wrist as they demonstrate to me how she holds her hand. I have been told that others are sick and in need of medical attention.’

A military source said: ‘This has been a race against time from the minute they were captured. As soon as the girls left Nigerian soil it was always going to be more difficult.

‘The government made no attempt at a rescue until a month after they were taken. Now the situation gets more serious by the day.

‘Any sort of attempt to get to them would have to be cleared by the governments of the other nations.’

Scathing condemnations of Nigeria’s failure to address the menace of Boko Haram, ever since a proposed peace deal failed last August – leading to the extension of a state of emergency in three northern states – continued worldwide last week.

US Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Nigeria had been ‘tragically and unacceptably slow’ to begin a search.

Others say the clock really being watched by Nigerian politicians is not the six weeks and counting since the kidnap but the 11 months to the country’s elections.

Opposition politician Nuhu Ribadu has accused the government of ‘total failure’.