Boko Haram fighters
By Dapo Akinrefon
THE Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, SMBLF, on Friday, kicked against the proposed plan by the Federal Government to release and grant Boko Haram members amnesty describing the move as wicked.
The forum, in a statement, backed the protest by the Nigerian Military Widows Association saying releasing captured Boko Haram members will cause untold devastation across the country.
The statement was signed by Yinka Odumakin (South West), Gen. CRU Ihekire (South East), Senator Bassey Henshaw (South South) and Dr Isuwa Dogo (Middle Belt).
The statement reads: “The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum fully backs the conscientious objection by Nigerian Military Widows Association against the wicked and insensitive continuous policy of the Federal Government on recycling of Boko Haram cadres.
“The release of these terrorists as the group continues to cause untold devastation across the land and inflicting maximum harm on our armed forces cannot be explained on any rational basis outside complicity with terrorism by the Federal Goverment and unwittingly promoting crime against humanity.
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“What is the basis of deciding that a Boko Haram member is repentant when the group is still spreading terror on daily basis? Is the government the one raising them to know the ones that are still active and the so – called repentant ones?
“We see the whole idea as an ethnic agenda to replicate for terrorists the Amnesty programme for Niger Delta militants who were destroying pipelines during their uprising against the neglect of Niger Delta but not spreading terror among innocent civilians or beheading human beings like Boko Haram.
“The 2000 members of the group reportedly released so far are more than enough to cause the surprise President Buhari expressed lately about the vibrancy of the terror group inspite of official lie that it had been degraded.
“Our hearts go to the large number of widows that we have harvested from insurgency and their children.
“In order to end this terror and stop turning more of our officers and men’s wives to widows, the government should stop forthwith the recycling of terrorists.
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