Ex-corps member turns down offer to be freed by B/Haram

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An ex-member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Abraham Amuta, yesterday allegedly turned down an offer by the Boko Haram insurgents to be freed and go home.

Instead, the

ex-corps member reportedly told those who went to the Sambisa forest to secure his release to go back home, saying he had renounced his Christian faith.

Amuta, a native of Benue

State, who was doing his oneyear mandatory service in Borno State, was abducted

alongside a 58-year-old man,

Moses Oyeleke of Living Faith Church in Maiduguri and few others, including a schoolgirl, Ndagiliya Ibrahim Umar, on April 10, 2019.

They were abducted along Gwoza road from Maiduguri on their way to Chibok to deliver humanitarian assistance.

Seven months after his abduction by the Boko Haram fighters loyal to Abubakar Shekau, Pastor Oyeleke was released in November 2019, following a mediation process by two NGOs, the Initiative for Peace Building Movement and the Kalthum Foundation for Peace, with the knowledge of security operatives.

Ndagiliya said she was held for nine months.

They made the revelations when they were received by the deputy governor of Borno State, Usman Kadafur, shortly before they were handed over to their families at the government house in Maiduguri.

Daily Trust reports that the negotiation for the release of Amuta and the other captives continued until yesterday when the process collapsed at the last hour following the excorps member’s decision to remain with his captors.

However, another captive Miss Stella Ibrahim reportedly returned home with the negotiators led by the chairperson of Kalthum Foundation, Ummu Kalthum Mohammed.

Speaking to Daily Trust in an exclusive interview, Kalthum said they went to the Sambisa forest along with representatives of a state government in the North East, some people from two key security agencies fighting the Boko Haram terrorists in the region, a friend of the excorps member whose name was given as Emmanuel and some of her colleagues.

“We eventually secured the release of Miss Stella Ibrahim because Amuta said he prefers to remain with the Boko Haram,” she said.