For the sake of peace and progress, President Muhammadu Buhari has said his government would not mind negotiating with Boko Haram insurgents as a way of tackling the security challenges confronting the country.

He spoke Friday while receiving top government functionaries who paid him the traditional Christmas homage in his residence at the Presidential Villa.

He said: “We appreciate that the security agencies are doing their best, it is showing and we have to continue praying for them.

“There can be no development without security, we have to continue to pray for them

“If we have 2 two million people as IDPs and 70 per cent are women and children, some of them are orphans, they grew up not knowing their parents, tradition or culture

“As leaders, we have a weighty responsibility to ensure that infrastructure for the orphans are taken care of.

“As leaders, we wake with the feeling for those children, the most important thing is that they must not be denied education, schools must be rebuilt, we also thank General Danjuma and the G7 led by the U.S. they have been doing their best to help Nigeria to train our military”

“As for Boko Haram, this government is determined to make sure that we persuade them if they can be persuaded, we will use government institutions to persuade them to allow peace to reign.

“We need to come together and pull the country out of this problem that we find ourselves, everybody in the world believes that Nigeria is a lucky country because of its natural resources. Our problem is how to organize ourselves and how to get the right leadership in place,” the President said.