By Josef Omorotionmwan
CERTAINLY, there is something the Northern Governors Forum and Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto, know about the Boko Haram which the rest of us do not know. That’s how it should be, though. It is not everything they know about their people that we should know.

Otherwise, in a land where everyone denounces witchcraft, how can some people suddenly jump out, wanting to go and deliver a message to the coven?

Originally, these men have jointly and severally been in the forefront of those condemning the atrocities of the terrorists. And suddenly they want unconditional amnesty for the same terrorists that they have been condemning. One is not quite sure if their condemnation could also have been a tacit endorsement of the activities of the same terrorist gang. No questions should be considered too harsh at this point.

What on earth is the wisdom in granting unilateral amnesty to unrepentant criminals who have not asked for it? Suppose they reject your offer? By the way, have members of the Boko Haram told anybody that they are tired of fighting? The facts on ground indicate otherwise. If anything, the group is diversifying for greater strength; and more efficiency and effectiveness in its operations.

They have just birthed a new chapter, Ansaru, which is considered more vicious and whose specialty is the abduction and killing of foreign elements.

Whoever gives amnesty on a platter of gold? It is normally after a big and protracted fight that the weaker side, at the point of surrender, begs for amnesty. By their call, the Northern Governors and the Sultan could as well be short-changing their principals because, unknown to them, we might get to the point where Nigeria would surrender to the terrorists, the way things are going.

But how did we get to this sorry state? Normally, it is only after a sore is healed that the pain is forgotten, even where the scar remains. In the case of the Boko Haram, the sore is getting wider and the pains, more intense. We wonder if the people now asking for blanket amnesty for the sect have forgotten the pains that this sect has taken this nation through since 2009 when it first struck. Could they have forgotten so soon how members of this sect have dispatched thousands of innocent Nigerians to their early graves? Time was when Jonathan probably reckoned that the same people who are now calling for amnesty for Boko Haram held the ace to his 2015 ambition.

Apparently, Nigeria has a President who is not propelled by any interest for his nation; but who is loyal only to his personal ambition. For 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan has gone for broke. If he were told that a blanket amnesty to Boko Haram would take him there, he would grant them amnesty before we wake up tomorrow morning.

The President got early warnings of the need to take a decisive action on the Boko Haram, the type of action that former President Olusegun Obasanjo took at Odi. Nay! Instead, it took more than a decade, in fact, only after Obasanjo touched on the nerve-centre of his ambition, for him to inform us that the Odi massacre was a fiasco, which affected only old women and children.

A man came to destroy your people and devastated the land and you remained mute for more than 10 years; and it was only when he touched on the sore-point of your selfish ambition that you began to shout thief, thief! If Obasanjo had not challenged you, we would never have heard of what he did to your people. Where, then, is the interest of the people?

See how Jonathan has led us into the deep woods by his inaction? Is it not clear that in Boko Haram, the effect of the Odi massacre may have been surpassed 10 times over?

Truly, whether the Odi massacre caught up with only mosquitoes and cockroaches, we are not swayed by the lousy argument that the massacre did not change the character of the Niger Delta militancy or that it did not contribute to the eventual amnesty, which the militants begged for.

It takes only a President like Jonathan not to react to the massacre of 12 soldiers, the way Obasanjo did. After killing 12 soldiers, maybe Jonathan would have awarded the militants a gold medal. The Odi incident remains painful to those of us connected to the area but a duty had to be done and Obasanjo did it. That’s a President!

Boko Haram and the Odi massacre have good parallels in history. Today, Branch Davidian, which was a replica of Nigeria’s Boko Haram, only exists in the history books. Following their killing of four American policemen, a raid was carried out on them in the wee hours of Monday, April 19, 1993, with tanks, armoured vehicles and chemical weapons. The entire area of Waco, Texas with everybody and everything thereon was reduced to ashes. All those calling for Obasanjo’s head over Odi should be reminded that Bill Clinton who was America’s President during the raid on Branch Davidian still moves around the world, a free man.

This call for amnesty imposes a duty on all Nigerians: First, the President is right that a blanket amnesty cannot be granted in vacuum to a faceless lot. He should tell us his next line of action. With a sitting government, we certainly cannot continue to roast blindly under the rule of Boko Haram as we have done in the past four years!

Secondly, the new found agents of Boko Haram/Ansaru must quickly bring out their principals and encourage them to come and properly request for amnesty if they so desire.

Thirdly, while the rest of us wait for the gladiators, we must remain more prayerful and ever vigilant because the game-plan of the principals and their agents can never be finally known. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty!