Pastor Bulus Yakuru was released by Boko Haram on 3 March, the day the Islamist terror group said they would execute him.
According to local media, the release was negotiated by the Nigerian government’s Department of State Services and a Nigerian charity, the Kalthum Foundation for Peace.
On 24 February Boko Haram released a video in which Pastor Bulus said that his captors had given him an ultimatum threatening to kill him a week from that date.
In the video Pastor Bulus pleaded with President Buhari, Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to intervene to secure his release.
The militants snatched the pastor on Christmas Eve 2020, during a raid on the predominantly Christian village of Pemi, about 20 km from Chibok, in which eleven people were killed. The gunmen went on to murder five Christians abducted in the region as a so-called “Christmas present”.
