President Goodluck Jonathan’s singular action of setting up a committee to address the Boko Haram crisis and consider the possibility of government’s planned amnesty for the members has excited General Muhammadu Buhari, his major critic and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the last general elections in the country.
Buhari, one of those championing the call for amnesty for the Boko Haram members, on Wednesday praised the Federal Government for setting up the committee.
In a very rare show of appreciation, Buhari, who was in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital to commiserate with Mrs. Hannah Awolowo on the death of her son, Oluwole Awolowo, said he wholeheartedly supported the amnesty gesture being planned by the Federal Government.
Describing it as a welcome development capable of restoring peace to the northern part of the country, the former Head of State, who was accompanied by Mr Tunde Bakare, his running mate during the elections, said: “it is good that the Federal Government has set up a committee on amnesty. I have not seen the terms of reference but it is a good step in the right direction.”
He recalled that the former Niger Delta militant group once benefitted from an amnesty programme maintaining that there is a precedent. According to him therefore, issues of amnesty are not new to the country.
“You remember it was granted to the militant group in the Niger Delta during the time of late President Musa Yar’adua,” he said stressing that it was the right step in the right direction.
Buhari, who also addressed party supporters in the state, said he was also going to Ekiti State to commiserate with the government and people over the death of Mrs. Funmilayo Olayinka, Deputy Governor of the state who passed on few days ago.
