Boko Haram, plot to destabilise Jonathan – S/South leaders

By Jimitota Onoyume

PORT HARCOURT – ELDERS and leaders of the South-South region have condemned the activities of Boko Haram, describing it as an orchestra-ted plot by a tiny minority to make the country ungover-nable under President Goodluck Jonathan.

South South Peoples Assembly, an umbrella body of people of the region, in a statement by Ambassador Mathew Mbu, Justice AdolphusKaribi-Whyte (rtd) and Dr. Kalada Iruenabere called on President Jonathan to fish out sponsors of the terrorist religious sect for prosecution.

They called Boko Haram a political tool in the hands of a small group it described as “power merchants and economic parasites,” seeking to achieve their earlier threat made during the struggle for Jonathan’s presidency to destabilise the nation.

The group said: “SSPA does not believe that the Boko Haram of today is the offshoot of the one crushed by the Yar’Adua administration. Rather, we are convinced that the name has become a metaphor for a more sophisticated struggle for political power. We daresay that it is a tool in the hands of those who threatened to make this country ungovernable and who lectured us on the inevitability of violent change in the heat of the struggle for the Jonathan presidency.

Rescue operation at the scene of the blast

“Boko Haram cannot be pursuing a religious agenda. It should be obvious that exploding bombs in Abuja will do very little to advance the cause of its fanatical Islamic ideology.

“On the contrary, we are convinced that the group’s agenda, clearly that of its urbane sponsors, is to make the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan unworkable.”