Nigeria ready for talks over militant-held girls: President

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari says his government is ready to negotiate with Boko Haram to secure the release of some 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Takfiri militants almost two years ago.

In a nationally televised press conference on Wednesday, Buhari said Abuja was ready to talk “without preconditions” but insisted on “identifying the bona fide so-called Boko Haram leadership.”

Boko Haram militants kidnapped a total of 276 girls from their school in the northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014. Several dozen girls escaped afterwards, but the fate of around 200 others is still unknown.