Boko Haram will free more than 200 young women and girls kidnapped from a boarding school in the town of Chibok last April in exchange for the release of militant leaders held by the government, The Associated Press has reported.

The agency said the claim was made by Fred Eno, an apolitical Nigerian who has been negotiating with Boko Haram for more than a year.

“The new initiative reopens an offer made last year to the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan to release the 219 students in exchange for 16 Boko Haram detainees,” the activist said.

Fred Eno (possibly a pseudonym) who was involved in negotiations with Boko Haram last year and is close to current negotiators, told the AP that “another window of opportunity opened” in the last few days, though he could not discuss details.

He said the recent bombings that have killed over 350 people killed in the past nine days was meant to force government to hold negotiations.

Eno said the 5-week-old administration of President Muhammadu Buhari offers “a clean slate” to bring the militants back to negotiations that had become poisoned by the different security agencies and their advice to Jonathan.

Two months of talks last year led government representatives and Eno to travel in September to a northeastern town where the prisoner exchange was to take place, only to be stymied by the Department for State Service, DSS, the activist said.

At the last minute, the agency said it was holding only four of the militants sought by Boko Haram, the activist said.

The activist said the DSS continues to hold suspects illegally because it does not have enough evidence for a conviction, and any court would free them.

Nigerian law requires charges be brought after 48 hours.  Amnesty International alleges that 8,000 detainees have died in military custody.

Boko Haram has not shown them since a May 2014 video in which its leader,  Abubakar Shekau warned: “You won’t see the girls again unless you release our brothers you have captured.”

In the video, nearly 100 of the girls, who have been identified by their parents, were shown wearing Islamic hijab and reciting the Quran. One of them said they had converted to Islam.

The presidency through Mr. Femi Adesina had said on Saturday that government was ready to hold talks with Boko Haram to stop the incessant killings.