Emir says amnesty call for Boko Haram members ill-conceived

Emir of Anka in Zamfara State, Attaihiru Ahmad, has described as ill-conceived the calls on President Goodluck Jonathan to grant members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect amnesty.

Speaking against the backdrop of calls on President Jonathan to grant amnesty to the sect members as a precondition for them to lay down their arms and embrace dialogue, the emir insisted that amnesty can only be granted people who are well known.

Sultan of Sokoto and president general of Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), Sa’ad Abubakar III, had during the annual central council meeting in Kaduna canvassed amnesty from President Goodluck Jonathan for the sect members. This was echoed by the

Borno Elders Forum during the visit of Jonathan to Maiduguri and Damaturu recently.

The Emir of Anka at a three-day workshop on peace building and conflict management for sustainable development organised by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on Wednesday in Kaduna, argued that “amnesty is for those people you know, how can you give amnesty to the people you don’t know.”

According to the emir, “Where were our leaders when the Boko Haram were going to receive trainings outside the country, let us check ourselves, if there must be justice, we must go back to the basis”.

He blamed the current security challenges on the elite and politicians, recalling that without the involvement of politicians in sundry crises, the common man had been living in harmony with each other.

Ahmad said, “From experience, I have come to realise that whenever you have crisis and a proper investigation is carried out, you always find the involvement of these two classes. Within my domain, a sad experience occurred sometime ago when an Igbo man who owns a shop where he dispenses drugs to the public was attacked and the shop burnt because his son was said to have torn into pieces a copy of the Quran, which upon investigation, I discovered that a native of Anka who was also in the same business with the Igbo man could not entice enough customers like his Igbo counterpart.

“He then took a piece of paper with an Islamic inscription on it and tore it into pieces in front of the Igbo man’s shop and then raised alarm calling

on all Muslims faithful to come and see a copy of the Quran torn into pieces by the son of the Igbo trader. The crowd grew angry and set the house and the shop of the Igbo man ablaze immediately. You can see that this native of Anka did this malicious act purely for personal interest and not religion. And that is how it is with the elite and the politicians”.

According to him, the elite and politicians most times spark off crisis in the country, regretting that their attitudes smack of lack of respect for human life.

“As a traditional ruler who lives with the people, I have come to a conclusion if the so called common man is left alone, there is going to be peace in the land. But any place you find crisis, just look around, you must find the involvement of these two classes – the elite and the politicians,” he asserted.

BLESSING OLAIFA, Kaduna