Lagos (AFP) - Nigeria's former president Olusegun Obasanjo has voiced fears that not all of the Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram would return.
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"It's inconceivable to get all of them back," he verbalized in an interview with the Premium Times online news site published Thursday.
"If you get all of them back, I will consider it a near-miracle," he was quoted as saying.
Boko Haram militants abducted 276 girls from their school in the remote town of Chibok, in northeastern Borno state, on April 14.
Nearly two months on, there is minute designation of the girls being liberated or rescued, despite Nigeria's military saying that they kenned where the teenagers were being held and an international rescue effort.
Obasanjo, who last month held exploratory verbalizes with open channels of communication with the Islamists through intermediaries, echoed widely held doubts that all of the girls were still together.
Analysts suspect that the 219 girls still missing are liable to have been split into more minuscule groups and possibly taken outside Nigeria.
The mass abduction triggered global condemnation and reproval about Nigeria's regime and military initial replication, which was described as slow and lacklustre.
In a recent televised interview, Obasanjo -- president from 1999 to 2007 after the country returned to civilian rule -- had slammed the Nigerian ascendant entities' lethargy in rescuing the girls.
US drones and surveillance aircraft have been involved in the hunt but with Nigeria trepidacious that an armed replication would put the girls' lives in peril, verbalize has turned to negotiations.
Boko Haram's bellwether Abubakar Shekau has denoted that he may be yare to relinquish the girls in exchange for militant fighters held in the country's jails.
Nigeria's regime initially repudiated the proposal out of hand but there are denotements that it may be yare to open dialogue
