Boko Haram Video: Analyst asks military to work with journalist

Tanwa Ashiru, an intelligence analyst, on Monday, called on the Nigerian Military to rethink its decision to declare the journalist and two others wanted, over the newly released Boko Haram video.

Ashiru, disclosed this during a live television interview that instead, the government should explore ways of collaborating with the journalist, Ahmed Salkida towards achieving the ultimate objective of defeating the dreaded insurgents.

“The military instead, should try to figure how to work with the journalist and the other lady, who they were declaring wanted.

“It is not by coming out and making them seem as if they are part of Boko Haram, they are not!”

She questioned why the military did not declare the CNN correspondent wanted, being the purported source of a previous released Boko Haram video.

She explained that Salkida might have received the video via an email and did what any journalist would do, insisting that it was not proper to declare him wanted.

“I don’t think it is actually the right way to go. Personally, I would think the best way to go about it (is to) be more diplomatic.

“You can’t just disrespect journalists because they are Nigerians and say that’s why we are going to declare them wanted. That’s not the proper way to go about it,” the analyst said.

The Boko Haram had on Sunday released a new video of the Chibok Girls.

It showed some girls they claimed were the schoolgirls they abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State, Northeast Nigeria.

They were abducted on April 14, 2014 from their school’s dormitory in Chibok, while they were preparing for their Secondary School Certificate Examinations.

News of the video release first emerged on Twitter, with Nigerian Blogger, Ahmed Salkida, claiming it was sent to him by the Abubakar Shekau faction of the Boko Haram.

The Nigerian Army subsequently declared Salkida and two others, (Ambassador) Ahmed U. Bolori and Aisha Wakil, wanted in connection with the latest video of the abducted Chibok girls.

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Spokesman of the Army, Colonel Sani Usman, alleged that the suspects had information on the conditions and the exact location of the girls.

He claimed that two recent incidents had pointed to the fact that the suspects were connected to the terrorist group.