‘How to Stop Boko Haram Menace’

Posted by admin Armed Forces, Boko Haram, Latest Politics Friday, July 15th, 2011

Chairman of the Adamawa State chapter of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and a member of the party’s national executive committee, Alhaji Umar Duhu has suggested a more broad approach in dealing with social and security problem posed by the activities of the Boko Haram sect.

The politician said in an interview with newsmen in Abuja Thursday that Federal Government needs to embark on more elaborate consultations with all the stakeholders and community leaders in Borno State to enable it get to the root of the matter.

In addition, he said government should also make haste in coming up with programmes that would address the social and economic imbalance that have tended to create frustrations among the youths.

Duhu said the elders in Maiduguri knows the people and will be ready to bring them out if government engages in sincere dialogue with them.

“I am urging the Federal Government to be more sincere about the issue of granting amnesty to the members of Boko Haram so that the remaining ones can come out and surrender themselves. So far what is happening is that people are afraid of the JTF and that if they come out to meet government, they may be arrested or killed. We need the Federal Government to send a high-powered delegation to Borno to meet with the elders and to engage them in serious dialogue that would come up with a strategy to end the menace of Boko Haram,” he said.

The ANPP chieftain further advised that the security forces should go more indept to fish-out those behind the sect.

“Let them find out all those who have been signing bail warrants for the deceased leader of the Boko Haram in Abuja in the days when he was arrested and brought to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT),” he said.

Duhu who denied any link between ANPP and the sect, said all the Federal Government needs to do is to convince the stakeholders, what it wants to do with this issue of Boko Haram and how sincere it is about making the changes that will bring about social justice in the land.

“Boko Haram saga can be solved in a day. Borno has elders. Government should have called all the stakeholders in Maiduguri; they don’t have to come to Abuja. The Vice president can represent the president. The Vice president is from the North. He will understand the thinking and the psychology of every northerner,” he said.

Duhu also disagreed with insinuations that the sect might have been sponsored by the former governor of Borno, Alhaji Modu Sheriff, saying both ANPP and the ex-governor new nothing about the origin and operation of Boko Haram.

“ANPP has never been part of Boko Haram and Sheriff is never the originator of Boko Haram. Before Sheriff becomes the governor of the state, Boko Haram has been there. The leader of the Boko Haram was prosecuted in Abuja two years before Sheriff becomes the governor of Borno State, ” he said.

-ThisDaywp_posts