The Senior Special Assistant for Public Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe has dismissed criticisms against President Jonathan over his recent visit to Yobe and Borno States and the non-granting of amnesty to members of the Boko Haram sect as cheap political snipping and point scoring, which he said were ill-informed and ill motivated.
Jonathan was faulted by opposition parties for talking down on Borno leaders who demanded the withdrawal of the Joint Task Force (JTF) and other security agents deployed to the State to combat the Boko Haram menace. The President was also criticized for rejecting calls for amnesty to the Islamist group describing them as “ghosts”. Jonathan was further taken to task for waiting too long before visiting the besieged State that has borne the brunt of the Boko Haram insurgency.
“It may be apt at this juncture for the purpose of comparison to recall when in 1980, during the Maitatsine insurgency in Kano, over 6,000 residents of Kano were killed in broad daylight but President Shehu Shagari who was the President of Nigeria at that time did not rush to Kano. President Shagari as a matter of fact did not go there for a very long time until the security situation in Kano had been brought to a situation where a President could visit and there was no hue or cry as at that time,” he said.
Okupe added that the visit allowed the President to actually show honest and true leadership by engaging in very frank talks with community leaders and leaders of thought in those two states.
“The President was not angry. The President felt it was time for us to look ourselves into the face; eyeballs to eyeballs and speak the truth to ourselves and if you cannot speak the truth, we cannot get justice and we will not find solutions to our problem,” Okupe added.
The presidential spokesman said it was important that Nigerians understand the nature and ideology of the Boko Haram insurgents for whom some people have been asking for amnesty, stating that: “Their demands include things like setting aside the Nigerian constitution and its replacement with laws based on the Sharia legal system, conversion of President Jonathan from his Christian faith to the Islamic religion, unconditional release of all its members arrested in connection with bombings, arson and violent killings in different parts of Nigeria and scrapping of all institutions of modern educational training.
“It is obvious from these stated demands that the Boko Haram sect is founded on an extreme faith-based ideology, which seek to coerce other citizens of this Nation to accept its own ways of life. This ideology is certainly inconsistent with the secular nature of the Nigerian Nation and the dreams of our founding Fathers.”
According to him, “the activities of the Boko Haram group are alien to civility as they have consistently murdered hundreds of thousands of women, children, the elderly and other defenceless citizens regardless of whether they are Christians or Muslims.
“It is, therefore, inconceivable that some people have continued to liken this religious terror group to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) to whom government offered an amnesty in 2010.
“Even though the methods adopted by MEND were like-wise condemnable, their demands were mainly socio-economic in nature and spelt out as crusade for better deal for its people whose farmlands and waters have been degraded by pollution emanating from the activities of oil firms operating in the region, Crusade for a greater share of funds accruing to oil producing states from the Federation Accounts. massive development of the Niger Delta region though provision of infrastructure like pipe borne water, electricity, hospitals and good roads.
“Despite the economic nature of these demands, leaders of the MEND were not anonymous. They came out to dialogue with government and it was on the basis of the dialogue that an amnesty was eventually granted by the Federal Government.
“The position of the Federal Government is that those who seek amnesty must come out in the open to renounce violence and drop their arms. That is the way it is done in all parts of the world and Nigeria cannot be an exception.”
“The President holds the Sultan of Sokoto in high esteem and does consult him from time to time on various national issues. The request by the Sultan for amnesty for the Boko Haram is quite understandable in view of his eminent position as the leader of the entire Muslim community in Nigeria and the preeminent traditional ruler in the North.
“However, the President has a responsibility to the whole Nation and his judgment must be based on facts and information that are available to him and that will be in the best interest of the Nigerian people. The President cannot afford the luxury of sentimental consideration under the present situation where government has to contend with and find a lasting solution to the menacing issue of Boko Haram insurgency.”
