Hopes are fading again for the release of the more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls who were abducted last April by Boko Haram.The leader of the Islamist militant group has laughed off government claims of a cease-fire with Boko Haram,and he said the kidnapped girls have converted to Islam and been married off.NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton joins us from Lagos.And, Ofeibea, a couple weeks ago the Nigerian government announced a cease-fire.What happened to that?Big question ― and still, the authorities are saying that negotiations are going on in neighboring Chad.But most Nigerians are saying, come on.We've got elections coming in just a couple of months ― February of next year.Is the government playing politics here?Is President Goodluck Jonathan playing politics?We want to know the truth of what is really going on.What more detail can you tell us about the announcement from the Boko Haram leader?Did this come in a video? What did he say?And this is Abubakar Shekau, the same man that the military claims to have killed last yearand that they killed somebody who was posing as him in September.But he comes out in this new video,as usual, surrounded by people in masks and combat fatigues and bearing the black and white Al Qaeda flag saying ― laughingly ―I mean, chortling, taunting the authorities,saying if you knew the state your daughters are in today, it might lead some of you to die from grief, addressing the parents
