Nigeria says ceasefire agreed with Boko Haram

Government officials say truce agreement reached
with armed group amid negotiations for release of
abducted girls.
Nigeria ' s official news agency says the
government fighters from Boko Haram have agreed
to an immediate ceasefire .
It quoted the chief of defence staff , Air Marshal Alex
Badeh, as ordering his troops to immediately
comply with the agreement on Friday .
The news came as another official confirmed there
had been direct negotiations this week in
neighbouring Chad about the release of more than
200 schoolgirls abducted six months ago.
Al Jazeera' s Haru Mutasa , reporting from Lagos ,
said details of the deal have yet to emerge.
" Both sides have agreed there will be no more
attacks, no more bombs and no more attacks on
Boko Haram. The government will not attack any
Boko Haram strongholds for the moment. " Mutasa
said.
" We do know Boko Haram wanted certain conditions
met, for example they wanted their senior
commanders released from government captivity . "
Mutasa added .
Abducted schoolgirls
Sources told Al Jazeera that substantial progress
had been reached in negotiations about the
abducted girls but that no definite deal had been
agreed.
A senior adviser to Nigeria ' s President Goodluck
Jonathan told Al Jazeera that the deal reached on
Friday included the release of the girls , but that no
date had been set and that the release was part of
an " ongoing process " .
Doyin Okupe said the government had agreed to
" some concessions " but did not give any details .
Boko Haram has been demanding the release of
detained fighters in exchange for the girls .
The group attracted international condemnation with
the April abduction of nearly 300 girls from a
boarding school in northeast Chibok town .
Dozens escaped but 219 remain missing .
Nigeria ' s president has been criticised at home
and abroad for his slow response to the abducted
and for his inability to quell the violence by the
group, seen as the biggest security threat to
Africa' s biggest economy.
Jonathan is expected to announce he will run for a
second term in office on Saturday .
Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates as
" Western education is sinful " , has killed thousands
of people in a five- year insurgency aimed at
creating an Islamic caliphate in the country ' s
northeast .

aljazerra