Group asks northern elders to take a definitive position on Bokoharam case

A non-governmental organisation, Initiative for Defence of Good Leadership, has berated elders in the northern region of the country for refusing to take a definitive position on the violent Islamic sect, Boko Haram, saying time has come to assist the Federal Government on the insurgency threat.

Executive Secretary of the organisation, Bambo Anjorin, said this in a statement obtained by journalists in Abuja on Sunday.

Anjorin expressed disappointment that northern leaders of thought, despite their vantage position in the country, “have failed to take a definitive position against Boko Haram’s atrocious activities.”

According to Anjorin, it took Martin Luther King Jnr. and Malcom X providing moral leadership to bring an end to segregation in America and that a similar scenario played out when the late President Umar Yar’Adua granted amnesty to Niger-Delta militants.

He said, “It was opinion leaders and highly-placed individuals from the region who made the once dreaded militants available to government. Though the Niger-Delta militancy is different from the insurgency in the north, northern elders and members of northern youth forums too can add their voice to the fight against Boko Haram.

“We at IDGL call on northern leaders to assist the Federal Government in combating Boko Haram, rather than continue in their indifferent posture. The silence of northern leaders has become discomfiting.”

Meanwhile, the Chairman, Board of Directors of Federal Road Maintenance Agency, Dr. Ezekiel Adeniji, has said that President Goodluck Jonathan’s chances of winning a second term in office cannot be affected by the activities of the Boko Haram sect.

Adeniji said this in an interview with journalists in Ila Orangun, Osun State, on Saturday when leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state held a meeting and pledged their support for Jonathan’s re-election.

Adeniji said the President had performed excellently in his first term and that Nigeria would soon see the end of Boko Haram.

According to him, the nation is recording a huge success in the war against the insurgents despite the massive killing by the members of the dreaded sect.

Source: PUNCH.