Contact: Laolu Akande, Executive Director, Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans (CANAN), 516-819-4355, laolu@cananusa.org

NEW YORK, July 11, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ -- We have followed with bated breadth, news developments in the last couple of days about the reported ceasefire by Boko Haram announced by the Nigerian federal government.

Yesterday after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting, the Minister of Special Duties, who is also the Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North, Alhaji Kabiru Turaki, spoke and tried to create a sense of public confidence in the purported breakthrough.

His words: "We have spoken with somebody who is second in command as far as Boko Haram is concerned and he has informed the media that he has been discussing with us with full knowledge and authority of Imam Abubakar Shekau."

In his own reaction, President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN queried "Which Boko Haram? There have been all kinds of people that claim to be Boko Haram, now there are two groups, the Shekau group and Ansaru group. Have you heard from them?"

As we have always noted, it bears repeating that the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans is not opposed to a political situation of the Boko Haram crisis. We are a people of faith, and therefore a people of reconciliation who will welcome a ceasefire, if it is for real, but the evidence of this right now is still at best very sketchy.

For instance, the name of the Boko Haram contact and spokesperson given by the government is new to the public.

If the federal government of Nigeria expects the right-thinking people in Nigeria and abroad to simply accept that this previously unknown name -- Mohammed Marwan represents Boko Haram, then the government is unrealistic.

And this is without prejudice to the man himself, who reportedly even asked for forgiveness from the society on behalf of the terrorist group! The problem though is that his words and action stand in stark contrast to those of Shekau.

What the government and Boko Haram should do, if this is for real, is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Shekau has indeed renounced his repulsive mandate, at least through the same video medium that he has been employing to communicate.

Secondly, since the so-called Boko Haram's second-in-command has claimed that the group was not behind last week's Yobe massacre of innocent school children, could the group help fish-out the perpetrators or at least help the government in its investigations?

We still have more to say. But for now, CANAN has adopted a wait-and-see-attitude. Simply put, we are saying like some fellow Americans will do when seeking for proof of an interesting claim before becoming persuaded: "Show Me!"