By Ochdereome Nnanna
EVERYONE knows what I think of dialogue with, and amnesty for, the Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram. Let me summarise it once again.

Being a foreign-inspired, trained and funded part of the global al Qaeda network and enemies of our nation, our security agencies must crush them and their local collaborators and apologists.

We must reassert the sovereignty of Nigeria. Terrorists must be made to pay for their crimes against Nigerians and humanity. After their defeat the nation can address the root causes of their agitation.

Offering amnesty to an unrepentant, even defiant group of murderous anarchists just because of political pressures will backfire and turn the problem into a hydra-headed one. That has been our stand here.

But with 2015 around the corner, President Goodluck Jonathan who only about a month ago said he would not dialogue with “ghosts” or faceless terrorists has now set up a crowded committee to explore the option, due to unprecedented pressure from Northern leaders.

The 25-member amnesty committee included names of two Northerners said to have close links with the terrorists: Dr Datti Ahmed and Mallam Shehu Sani. Sani, in particular, has been very vocal in his advocacy for dialogue with Boko Haram. He was, in fact, involved in an earlier move to link up with the leadership of this group.

One after the other, they backed out of the committee. After he jumped ship, Sani was quoted in media reports as saying he knew someone who could stop the terror if President Jonathan would “pick up the phone” and put through a call.

If he believes that force alone would not end the insurgency, and he also knows someone who has the clout to call the terrorists to order, and refuses to make himself available when called upon to do so, it calls his patriotism to question.

These guys are simply holding the Presidency and the country at large to ransom. After making a lot of noise calling for dialogue, Federal Government invites you to join in the effort towards dialogue and you back out with flimsy and childish excuses!

Datti and Sani would rather sit on their palms and watch schools, markets, mosques, churches, motor parks and sleeping villagers bombed and destroyed across the North. They would rather watch young Muslims wearing explosives and committing suicide in order to kill fellow Nigerians, perhaps because they believe they are safe and immune from direct hit or collateral damage.

In truth, I am not bothered whether the entire amnesty committee backs out. In fact, it is best if they do. We can do better things with the money. We can do without the distraction that this committee and their “amnesty” farce will bring to our gallant security forces battling to safeguard the lives, property and the constitutional rights of Nigerians.

But the sad truth has been confirmed: There are Nigerians who know the terrorists. There are those who believe in using them to arm-twist the Jonathan Presidency, hoping it will cave in for the North to return to power.

They are using them to blackmail the nation, forgetting that the North as the theatre of war and target of Islamisation will remain the primary casualty. And nobody living in the war zone can boast he is above being made a victim, one way or the other.

Meanwhile, Datti and Sani should never be involved in any future national assignments. Nigeria does not need anyone who will take this nation for a ride.

60 hearty cheers for Otunba Adenuga

IN America and France, super-wealthy people such as Warren Buffet and  Liliane Bettencourt have petitioned government to impose heavier taxes on the so-called “1%” club. These are citizens who have emerged at the top of the financial food chain. They are referred to as the “patriotic millionaires”.

In Nigeria, there are billionaires who convert their (often questionable) wealth into hard currency and stash in foreign safe havens.

Then they live in idle opulence or simply turn into political “godfathers”. Some use their money to cause trouble in their localities, such as sponsoring chieftaincy tussles, buying weapons for communal wars, bankrolling terrorism or simply flexing muscles to show they have arrived.

We also have our own patriotic billionaires; people who made their money in Nigeria by exploiting public policies and patronage, going on to build corporate empires and providing gainful employment to hundreds of thousands of young people. I call them Made-in-Nigeria billionaires.

The most renowned ones include Dr Mike Adenuga, Alhaji Aliko Dangote and Mr Innocent Chukwuma of Innoson Group.

Of all these, Otunba Adenuga stands out because he is a true Nigerian pioneer. When the Federal Government in 1989 opened the way to Nigerians in the upstream sector of the petroleum industry, Adenuga as a young businessman was the first to boldly stand before the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Professor Jibril Aminu, to ask for his Consolidated Oil and Gas to be plugged in.

Years later, his company, Globacom also became the first Nigerian firm to apply for a licence to operate the new Global System of Mobile Telecommunications, GSM. He was initially denied while foreign competitors swept the fertile Nigerian market.

He fought gallantly until then President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime caved in and granted Globacom the juiciest operating licence as Nigeria’s Second National Carrier. When Glo eventually entered the market it forced down shylock tariffs by introducing the “per second” billings which foreign companies had said was “impossible”.

Come this Saturday, April 29, 2013, Otunba Mike Adenuga Jnr, a symbol of the Great Nigerian Possibility and rated as the second wealthiest Black man in the world with about $5 billion worth, will attain the threshold age of 60. Here is wishing him more. Happy birthday cheers!