Nigeria talks with Boko Haram

Despite five attacks killing dozens of people in northeastern Nigeria since Friday, the government claims that the release of 219 school girls kidnapped in April could come within a matter of days.

Government spokesman Mike Omeri said that authorities were "inching closer to the release of the Chibok girls" and that talks were to resume in Chad this week.

On Friday, French President Francois Hollande had told a news conference in Paris that the girls' release "could happen in the coming hours and days." France has been involved in negotiations that led to the release of several of its citizens kidnapped by Boko Haram in Cameroon. Neither Hollande nor Nigerian government officials have given any details.

Reports from Cameroon's security forces have indicated that members of Boko Haram have been deserting and turning themselves in to authorities across the border from Nigeria. The former fighters said their leaders had been killed and they no longer wanted to fight, but were too afraid to go back to their communities.

But following previous disappointments about an end to the five years of violence, community leaders in Chibok - the remote town in northeast Nigeria from where the girls were kidnapped - remain skeptical.

"We are waiting, hoping that it is really true and that the people who negotiated on Boko Haram's side, that they are the genuine leaders," Chibok community leader Pogu Bitrus said. There were concerns last week about the veracity of the man claiming to be a negotiator for Boko Haram in Chad.

Boko Haram has demanded the release of detainees in exchange for the girls. To date, the government has refused.

There has been no announcement on the ceasefire by Boko Haram itself. The extremist group usually issues video statements online. Government spokesman Omeri told the Guardian newspaper: "There are members who want things like jobs, anything that will give them a start in life, because not all of them are truly convinced by Boko Haram's ideology."

jm/rc (AP, AFP)