Former President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed that Boko Haram insurgents once nominated ex-President Muhammadu Buhari to represent them in peace talks with the Federal Government.
Jonathan made the disclosure on Friday at the public presentation of Scars, a book authored by former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor (retd.), in Abuja.
He explained that during his administration, several committees were set up to explore dialogue with the sect, and in one of such attempts, the insurgents listed Buhari as their preferred negotiator.
“One of the committees we set up then, the Boko Haram nominated Buhari to lead their team to negotiate with the government,” Jonathan said.
The former president noted that he initially believed Buhari’s eventual emergence as president would make it easier to negotiate peace, but the insurgency persisted.
Jonathan stressed that the failure to eradicate Boko Haram under Buhari’s administration showed that the crisis was “far more complex than often portrayed.”
He added:
“Boko Haram started in 2009 when I was vice president. I took over in 2010 and spent five years battling the insurgency until I left office. I thought that after I left, within a reasonable time, General Buhari would wipe them out. But even today, Boko Haram is still there.”
Jonathan also described the 2014 abduction of Chibok schoolgirls as a “permanent scar” on his presidency and urged the current government to adopt a carrot-and-stick approach in tackling the crisis.
He warned that the group’s access to sophisticated weapons suggested external support beyond poverty or hunger, stressing the need for a fresh strategy to end the insurgency.
Boko Haram, which emerged in the early 2000s in Borno State, became a major security threat after its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed in police custody in 2009. The sect has since carried out bombings, mass abductions, and attacks on both civilian and military targets.
