Former President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed that Boko Haram insurgents once nominated Muhammadu Buhari as their preferred negotiator during peace efforts with the Federal Government.
Jonathan made the disclosure on Friday in Abuja at the public presentation of Scars, a memoir by retired Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor.
He explained that while his administration established several committees to explore dialogue with the insurgents, the group insisted that Buhari should represent them in one of such instances.
According to him, this raised his expectations that Buhari, upon assuming office as president in 2015, would find it easier to persuade the group to lay down arms.
However, he noted that the insurgency persisted, proving that the crisis was “far more complex” than often presented.
Jonathan said: “One of the committees we set up then, the Boko Haram nominated Buhari to lead their team to negotiate with the government. I felt that when he later became president, it would have been easy for him to get them to surrender. But even till today, Boko Haram is still there.”
He stressed that eradicating the terrorist group has never been straightforward, arguing that external influences and sophisticated weaponry point to support beyond poverty or hunger.
“If you value the weapons they use, you will know these are not hungry people,” Jonathan remarked, suggesting a carrot-and-stick strategy might be more effective.
The former president also revisited the 2014 abduction of schoolgirls from Chibok, describing it as a permanent scar on his administration.
He expressed hope that one day, insurgent leaders would document their own accounts, just as veterans of the Nigerian Civil War did, to shed light on their motives.
Jonathan acknowledged that both his government and that of Buhari tried various approaches but admitted that Boko Haram’s longevity showed the limits of conventional counter-insurgency methods.
He called on the current administration to reassess its strategy and adopt new ideas to address the crisis.
Boko Haram, which began in Borno State in the early 2000s under Mohammed Yusuf, rose to global notoriety after Yusuf’s death in police custody in 2009.
In 2012, at the height of its violence, the sect was reported to have named Buhari among respected northern leaders it trusted to mediate talks with government.
Buhari, however, rejected the offer at the time, accusing the Jonathan administration of trying to use his name for political ends.
