Chibok girls: It’s time for prisoner swap with Boko Haram

It is also more than 40 days since the country received sundry offers of military assistance from various countries including USA, Britain, China, France and Australia.  These offers from the ‘international community’ raised flickers of messianic hopes of a quick release of the girls. But more than 40 days after these foreign technical assistance were […]

It is also more than 40 days since the country received sundry offers of military assistance from various countries including USA, Britain, China, France and Australia.  These offers from the ‘international community’ raised flickers of messianic hopes of a quick release of the girls. But more than 40 days after these foreign technical assistance were offered and accepted, many are coming to the realization that even the ‘international community’ has no magic wand to wave before the abductors of the girls. Messianic hopes are quickly giving way to despondency or rather to the bitter realization that the terrorists are as determined, even not more determined, than those pursuing them.  
In all these, the Chibok girls have become cannon fodders for all – from those seeking for relevance to the opponents of the regime who are only too happy to remind us that this is another instance of the regime’s incompetence and to the government’s apologists who will blame anyone but the government for why the girls are not yet released.
Amid all these came a yet-to-be-denied report that Boko Haram leaders were interested in swapping the abducted girls for some of their activists and family members held in captivity. In fact the President was quoted as saying emphatically that his regime would not engage in any swap of prisoners with terrorists. That is of course what many presidents are expected to say – talk tough in public even if they are using third parties to conduct negotiations with those they swear publicly never to negotiate with.
We may never know if the Jonathan regime is in fact negotiating with Boko Haram or not. It is in fact understandable that for security reasons not all that the government is doing to secure the release of the girls will be in the public domain. However, whatever the efforts are, many Nigerians are feeling that those efforts, if any, are taking far too long to bear fruits. Sixty days is far too long to leave young and impressionable girls in the hands of deviants who operate from the other side of the moral divide. We cannot continue to wait ad infinitum for ‘something’ to happen.  To paraphrase the British economist, John Maynard Keynes, in the long run, most of the girls will have reconciled themselves to their circumstances; some will have become pregnant while some will have become dead.
I now believe it is time to do a prisoner swap with Boko Haram.  Though the entire idea of releasing terrorists suspected of committing monstrous atrocities is truly horrifying, under the present circumstances, the consequences of not doing a deal are worse than the consequences of doing one. We just have to imagine we are the parents or siblings of the abducted girls!
Throughout history, countries that are far tougher than us, who have engaged in asymmetrical warfare, have had, when the push came to shove, to swap prisoners with their ‘weaker’ adversaries. For instance as tough and hawkish as Israel is in its relations with its avowed enemies, it has been estimated that in the three decades to 2011, it released almost 8,000 detainees in exchange for captured Israeli soldiers and detainees. Some of the more famous of those prisoner swaps include the release of 4,600 Arab detainees in June 1983 in exchange for six Israeli soldiers held in Lebanon.  In June 1984 it swapped 291 Syrians captured in battle and the remains of 72 Syrians for six Israelis and five bodies (only two of which were positively identified as Israelis). In May 1985 Israel released 1,150 Arab prisoners in exchange for three IDF soldiers held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In January 2004 Israel released 436 Palestinian and other Arab prisoners in a deal with Hezbollah for the return of Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli businessman, and three dead IDF soldiers abducted on a border patrol in 2000. In July 2008 in return for releasing five men, Israel recovered from Hezbollah the bodies of two of its soldiers, captured in The Second Lebanon War in 2006. In October 2011,  Israel swapped  25 jailed Egyptians for Ilan Grapel who was detained in Egypt on accusations that he was out to recruit agents and monitor events during the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak, an ally of Israel and the United States. Israel denied the allegations.
France’s decision in 2010 to release Ali Vakili Rad, who was convicted in 1994 of killing the former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar so that Interior Ministry officials could execute a court order expelling him to Tehran, was suspected to be a prisoner swap.   This is because shortly after his release and deportation, Clotilde Reiss, a 24-year-old French teacher who had been detained in Tehran since July 2009 on charges of espionage in connection with Iran’s contested 2009 presidential election, returned home.
The USA also does swapping of prisoners. At the beginning of this month the country secured the release of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl who spent five years in captivity. Bergdahl, who was held by the Pakistani Taliban militants was exchanged for five of the group’s most deadly snipers who were being who were being held at the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.
But even before this, there was the infamous Iran-Contra affair which came to light in November 1986.  Under the Iran-Contra deal (which became Irangate when it leaked), senior Reagan administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo, on the hopes that  the arms sales would secure the release of several  American hostages in Iran and also  allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
In almost all instances of prisoner swap, more detainees from the weaker adversaries are released by the state – an indication that such states value the life of its citizen more than several or even hundreds of their asymmetrical foes.
Of course there are legitimate fears that releasing some of the detained Boko Haram members could bolster the fighting forces of the terrorists, further endangering the lives of citizens. But we can also pose the question of whether the arrest and detention of those Boko Haram is allegedly asking to be released in exchange for the Chibok girls  has led to an abatement in their terrorism. If the detention of the arrested suspected Boko Haram members has done little to abate Boko Haram’s terrorism, then we can also argue that their release may not significantly affect the trajectory of the conflict. If anything, it could be a confidence-boosting measure, something to assure Boko Haram, that the government may be willing to do a ‘better’ deal if they choose to embrace peace and dialogue.
Certainly given the atrocities and mayhem the sect has committed serially, this will understandably be a very bitter pill for many Nigerians to swallow. However there comes a time in the life of a nation when it has to stoop painfully low, not to conquer, but to demonstrate that it is capable of compassion and empathy. Many Nigerians feel that if the children of some high profile politicians were among those kidnapped, something would have been done a long time ago to secure their release. In essence that the Chibok girls are still with their abductors more than sixty days after they were whisked away and more than 40 days since some foreign military advisers arrived to help secure their release, underlines the fact that despite the posturing and grandstanding about ethnicity, religion and region, it is in one’s class location in the scheme of things that we should seek valid explanations about who gets what, when and how.
There are also those who oppose any form of deal with Boko Haram over the Chibok girls on the ground that the government would lose face by so doing. True, the government may lose face momentarily – and only in the estimation of some – but so what?  Given a choice between losing a face and losing lives and futures, which one should we go for?
Though it is the policy of most governments not to pay ransom to have kidnap victims released, we know that in real life ransoms are paid to ensure that victims are released alive.  By embracing the option of prisoner swap, the government will also deny its traducers the opportunity for grandstanding or puffing for relevance.  It will be horrifying to the government to contemplate how the citizens will perceive it if (God forbid) anything untoward happens to the girls. Such, in many climes will be enough to bring down a ruling government. Though all the levels of government – federal,  Borno State government  and local governments in Borno State share culpability in the way the Boko Haram challenge grew out of hand and led to the abduction of the Chibok girls, only the federal government has the right to do a deal with Boko Haram. In my opinion this is the time for the federal government to exercise that prerogative.  In fact the more the delay in securing the release of the girls, the more the regime loses its legitimacy and makes hero of opportunists and soldiers of fortune trying to regain relevance from the whole sad episode.