Nigeria’s government and Boko Haram fighters are reported to have entered into a secret three-month ceasefire, an arrangement that investigators say coincided with the release of hundreds of villagers who had been held captive since an attack earlier this year.
According to accounts that have emerged in recent days, the truce is understood to have taken hold around June and could be extended by roughly 40 additional days. Reports indicate that some 360 civilians who were abducted from a village in Borno State in March, during an assault on a nearby military base, have since been released as part of the arrangement. Investigators examining the episode say a payment of about five billion naira, equivalent to roughly $3.7 million, is alleged to have changed hands, though this has not been independently confirmed.
Nigerian authorities have firmly rejected the characterisation of any deal with the armed group, maintaining publicly that the government does not negotiate with or pay ransom to Boko Haram, which has waged an insurgency in the country’s northeast for more than a decade. Government, defence and military spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment on the reported arrangement before the claims became public, and officials have continued to deny that any formal ceasefire or payment took place.
If accurate, the reported truce would mark a significant, if unofficial, shift in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions across Nigeria’s northeast since 2009. Analysts caution that informal, unconfirmed arrangements of this kind have periodically emerged in the past, often collapsing within months and rarely translating into a lasting reduction in violence. The lack of an official government acknowledgement, they say, makes it difficult to assess how durable any pause in hostilities might prove, or whether further releases of captives should be expected in the weeks ahead.
For families of those still missing after years of attacks and abductions linked to the insurgency, the reported releases offer a fragile note of hope, even as uncertainty persists over who brokered the arrangement and what, if anything, was promised in return.