THE roll-call of politicians and influential public persons of northern Nigerian extraction pleading for the government
to spare bloodthirsty Islamist insurgents from facing the law of the land grew on Monday, with the Senator Abdul Ningi’s call for President Goodluck Jonathan to reconsider his stand on amnesty for the group.
Ningi made the call during a reconciliatory meeting for the members of the Peoples Democratic Party, chaired by the party’s national chairman, Mr. Bamanga Tukur, strengthening growing beliefs by political observers that the calls were possibly desperate, self-serving appeals by elite northerners made for their own personal safety.
Appealing to Mr. Tukur to plead with Mr. Jonathan to reconsider the desirability of amnesty to the insurgents, Ningi said it is the responsibility of government to protect lives and property of the citizenry, and that the zone is the most marginalized and impoverished in the federation.
Of course Mr. Ningi did not take the case of the south-south region, noted for providing up to 95% of federal revenue, but yet has not only its lands, waters and air polluted alongside ruining the chief vocation of fishing in the region, but has little or no investment for the development of the region in any way.
“I am appealing to the Chairman to plead with the president to reconsider his stand on the issue of amnesty to insurgents.
“The zone is the most marginalised and its economy is grounded,” Ningi said.
Top Peoples Democratic Party members from all the six states in the zone, including Governors of Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba as well as Deputy Governors of Adamawa and Yobe States, attended the meeting.