Presidency cautions proponents of amnesty for Boko Haram

THE Presidency Monday cautioned proponents of amnesty for members of Boko Haram against politicising the issue. It said they should instead take a cue from how the amnesty programme in the Niger Delta was brokered by initiating contacts with the Boko Haram leadership and convince them to come out in the open and dialogue with government.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, gave the admonition in a statement issued in Abuja Monday.

According to him, President Goodluck Jonathan has nothing to gain from the prolongation of the wanton destruction of life and property by Boko Haram and expects leaders of thought in the affected states to prevail on the group to abandon its destructive pursuit and embrace dialogue like the militants in the Niger Delta did before amnesty was granted.

And warning against the danger of promoting impunity among ethnic groups, the pan-Yoruba socio-political group Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), Monday  opposed any move to grant amnesty to members of Boko Haram.


The group specifically urged Jonathan  not to succumb to the increasing pressure of granting amnesty to the  members of Boko Haram as this move  would encourage other ethnic groups to hold the view that violence pays and therefore resort to this  as a means of seeking government’s attention rather than using legitimate means.

Also, the   Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Ita Enang, has said that for amnesty for Boko Haram  to be meaningful, leaders from the North should volunteer to coordinate the process.
But  a Niger Delta group, the Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC), has opposed amnesty for Boko Haram members.
Meanwhile, in the wake of attacks on schools in the northern part of the country by the Boko Haram sect members, Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has urged the Federal Government to adequately protect them and apprehend those who want to cripple education in the country.
Soyinka spoke Monday at the 2013 Rivers State Education Summit with the theme “Enhancing Sustainable Development in Education”.
He described the Boko Haram sect as an uneducated group saying, it was wrong for them to claim to be educated.

Okupe warned against politicising the issue of amnesty and using it to blackmail the President “whose overriding desire is the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of all Nigerians irrespective of their social, religious and political leanings.”

He went o on: “There is therefore no need for the over-politicization of the demand for Amnesty, nor to blackmail the President for taking strong, patriotic but contrary views to those of some of our respected elders. Such, sometimes is the nature of statecraft and in many parts of the civilized world, situation like this are handled with equanimity and further deepening of consultation, certainly not acrimonious misunderstanding or open hatred.

“The true expectation is that our respected leaders will go back to the drawing board and increase internal consultation and networking with the aim of reaching out to the leadership of the insurgents and convincing them to do the needful and step out to be counted.”
Okupe recalled that prominent leaders of the Niger Delta such as former Information Minister, Chief Edwin Clark, former Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, former Minister for Culture Alabo Graham Douglas and a few others co-operated fully with the late President Musa Yar’Adua by visiting militants’ camps and persuading them to lay down their arms and allow government address their grievances in a civilised manner.
He added: “This was the way and manner a successful amnesty programme was hatched and effected. Many local leaders and stakeholders bought into the government’s amnesty programme. It was carefully planned, properly structured and effectively implemented with co-operation and willing support of elders, stakeholders and well known and nationally acknowledged open leadership of the militants. These include Asari Dokubo, Boyloaf, Tompolo, Atake Tom, Tamuno George, Soboma George to mention a few. They were clearly identified and they negotiated openly and transparently with the government.
“It is for these reasons that there is need for a great restraint when we advocate for Amnesty for those amongst us, who have actually, through criminality engaged in wanton destruction of innocent lives, public and private properties; especially when their activities are based on ethnic and religious ideologies that actually strike at the foundation of our mutual co-existence. We also need to be mindful that we have other ethnic militias in the country who have remained essentially peaceful, and who may by these calls for amnesty be encouraged to now pursue violence.
“Grandstanding, undue politicization, blackmail and insincerity will not help us as a Nation. We are a Nation of strong-willed, socio culturally well differentiated society, with long standing historical ties, and we are one people with a clear destiny to lead Africa and the World. We must at times like this show exemplary mutual respect, affinity and cohesion strong enough to lift us together as one strong and united people, out of this quagmire and National misadventure.”
Afenfere’s  National Chairman, Mr. Wale Oshun, said  yesterday at a press conference in Lagos  that further granting amnesty may make the exercise an endless one as other miltant groups that may emerge from other regions in the future would seek to be treated the way previous violent groups were treated in the past.
Rather than granting amnesty, the ARG said the legal and most logical option availabe to President Goodluck  Jonathan was the convocation of a national conference which many Nigerians have been advocating.
The ARG which totally condemned the killings attributed to Boko Haram, however,  said that the  agitation by the group which  was  for their area to be administered in accordance with Islamic laws made it imperative for  a national conference where those allegedly sponsoring the insurgency could sit down with other ethnic nationalities, to table their grieviances and arrive at  a common solution.
Some members of the group include Mrs Jumoke Anifowose, Tokunbo Ajasin, Mr Ayo Afolabi, Kunle Famoriyo, Dr Ade Adeagbo, Prince Oyewole Oyewunmi.
According to Afenifere, Boko Haram  may have genuine grievances  but  the means by which they express them is  wrong.  They  therefore urged that such grievances should   be ventilated through a legitimate means.
“However, while we appreciate the concerns of those who have canvassed amnesty as a response strategy to this menace, we would, however,  like to say that the Boko Haram menace is a persistent indication and manifestation of a deeper malaise beleaguering the country. Amnesty will therefore be another attempt not only to create an opportunity for anarchists, but to further postpone the evil days. Considering the structural deficiency of the country, it is not likely that we would see an end to the use of amnesty. Therefore, in line with our constant agitation for the imperative of restructuring this multi-ethnic, multi-religion and multi-faceted country, it is our view that there is no better time than now to convene a national conference that would finally resolve the nationality question that constantly and continuously pushes this country to the precipice. We demand a convocation of this conference without any further delay,” the group said.
The group which condemned the recent Kano bombing in which over 20 people were killed,  and other bombings across the northern parts of the country, said responsibilty for these killings rested squarely on  President Jonathan and therefore urged him to  immediately end these killings by convoking a national conference without any further delay.
The group said: “... we would like to express our group’s serious concern regarding the current bloodshed in the country, mainly as a result of the activities of the so-called Boko Haram and another group that calls itself Ansaru. We are deeply touched and we sympathise with the victims of these unfortunate occurences, and like most Nigerians, we call on the Federal Government to rise up to its responsibilities and put a final stop to this frequent bloodshed.”
Enang spoke in his country home at Ididep in Ibiono Ibom Council Area of Akwa Ibom State at the weekend during the handover by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) of a 15-kilometre road project to the contractor in charge of the job.
Enang, who represents Akwa Ibom North-East (Uyo) Senatorial District, said there was nothing wrong in the  President granting the group amnesty, noting however, that leaders of the North should think of a better approach to engender peace for the nation.
“I would pray that the leaders of this part of the country that are involved should be more concerned because it appears that most of them are scared and are not prepared to come out. The only thing they are able to say is grant amnesty, but they are not able to bring out the people or say look, am going to coordinate them.
“Let them volunteer to lead the peace talk and bring these people to the security and government agents so that they will be granted amnesty”, he said.
He described Jonathan as a man of peace, noting that once the right steps were taken and the incessant bombings ceased, the coast would be clear for amnesty to take place.
“I would pray, let the spate of bombings stop so that it can be reasonable to talk, because when people are prepared to talk peace and the next moment you hear a bus exploding, people’s fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters killed, it would be difficult to talk about amnesty”, he observed.
JRC Spokesperson, Cynthia Whyte, said it was morally wrong to grant amnesty to a group that had killed more than 400 Christians through bombings of churches, straight-faced slitting of the throats of Christian faithful while they attended church programmes.
“Boko Haram sect or whatever name it appends to itself, has killed enough men, women and children. The members have murdered in cold and hot blood far more soldiers and officers of the Nigeria Police than any other insurgent groups in Nigeria’s history. There are families who will never recover from the wickedness and murderous treachery that the sect has visited on them”, Whyte added.
According to Soyinka, “all hope is not lost, but the situation is desperate, very desperate. Those who call themselves Boko Haram, for instance, claim to be educated; educated to mean books, and they are not sufficiently educated even about their religion to know that some of the greatest philosophers came from that religion. Some of the greatest mathematicians were the pioneers of Moslems, Islamic scholars. So, these killers roaming around saying that they hate western education, are uneducated; but they think they are educated.”
He described the thought of the terrorist group as a one-track lane thought, stressing the need to re-educate them about their own history and culture.
Soyinka said the multi-pronged approach adopted by the government in fighting the Boko Haram menace through setting up of Almajiri schools was a welcome development but insisted that those who trying to cripple education should be arrested and re-educated or be punished in order to move ahead.
“When people talk about the multi-pronged approach, yes I agree and I approve of the attempts being made to create the so called Almajiri schools which should be supervised. The content and the method of teaching should be supervised. At the same time, however, to impact knowledge, you have to have the heads where they belong for the knowledge to be impacted.
“So, as they talk about amnesty as much as they want, first, you have to catch those who are trying to take the heads off where we are suppose to impact knowledge. It is a multi-pronged approach. When you catch them, you got to re-educate them very seriously. If they refuse to be re-educated, you must punish them. I am not sentimental at all. The society must first of all protect itself and the citizens must be thought on how to protect their society, how to ensure their own survival. I want to be sure that teachers are not being slaughtered for following their vocation. Those teachers must be protected,” Soyinka added. The noble laureate also called on the government to re-open the schools shut down in the North following the unrest in the region.
Also, Prof. Emeritus Ayo Banjo, in his keynote address, noted that Nigeria, like other under-developed countries, still has a long way to go, hence its interest in educational development needs to be single-minded, producing at one end researchers of the first order, and worthy masters of their political leaders.
Banjo lamented the depressing outcome of the 6:3:3:4 policy, noting that recent school certificates present a gloomy picture and an alarm influence in the tertiary institutions where 80 per cent of students graduate with a third class honours.
He pointed out that the 6:3:3:4 system of secondary education is admirable in design but has not been implemented faithfully, warning that if after so many years, a faithful implementation is not yet in sight, it would be necessary to consider alternatives.
Governor Chibuike Amaechi assured that about 13,000 persons who applied for teaching job in the state would be employed this month to further enhance education in Rivers.
He accused teachers and headmasters of collecting examination fees and other illegal fees from the pupils in the newly constructed schools where pupils are not supposed to pay a kobo.