Abuja: Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram Thursday rejected claims made by some media houses stating that the group was holding peace talks with the government. Boko Haram also threatened to strike media houses it said fight the group “with the pen”.
The local press and at least two foreign news organizations have reported that talks are going on between the government and the militants who have been staging an insurgency against it, citing unnamed sources.
In a written statement issued on Thursday, the sect’s spokesman Abu Qaqa said “We are telling the government to understand that if it is not ready to embrace sharia (Islamic law) and the Koran as the guiding book from which the laws of the land derive, there shall be no peace.”
Qaqa also threatened media houses, recalling the sect’s dual bomb attack on local newspaper ThisDay in the capital Abuja and northern city of Kaduna in April that killed five people.
“They should understand that for us there is no difference between those fighting with arms and with the pen,” he said.
The closest the militants have come to talks with the government was in March, when a former ally of Boko Haram’s founder Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009, called Datti Ahmed attempted to establish links.
The talks fell apart within days.
“Ever since that attempt at dialogue was aborted there has not been any move for dialogue that we agreed till date,” Abu Qaqa said in Thursday’s statement.
Qaqa rejected a report in a U.S. newspaper that government officials had met a Boko Haram commander called Abu Mohammed in Saudi Arabia, denying the man even existed.
“We’ve heard about those who go about using our names in order to collect huge sums of money from the government. We are warning you,” he said.
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