KANSAS CITY, KANSAS – SULTAN of Sokoto and president-general of the Supreme Council of Islamic
Affairs, Mr. Mohammed Saad Abubakar, demanded on Tuesday that President Goodluck Jonathan grant unconditional amnesty to members of the group known as Boko Haram, the violent group agitating to Islamize of Nigeria.
Speaking in the northern city of Kaduna, capital of Kaduna State, in his capacity as the leader of Council otherwise known as Jama’atu Nasril Islam, the Sultan likened the case concerning Boko Haram to that of the militants agitating for resource control in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
The Niger Delta region is responsible for over 90 percent of Nigerian wealth, mostly sourced from the crude oil beneath its soil and in its waters. Unfortunately, the region has enjoyed far less social or infrastructural development than most regions in Nigeria, including the northern region where the deadly Islamic militants operate.
Also unlike the northern region, the Niger-Delta has not had the kind of lengthy access to the very pinnacles of leadership that the northern region has enjoyed for most of Nigeria’s history, although the development in the north never corresponded with its lengthy access to national leadership.
Acute poverty straddles the Niger Delta region, worsened by the degradation of its land and waters and air by repeated oil spills. Fishing, the popular vocation of the people of the mangrove swamps and creeks of the Niger-Delta, has been badly affected by massive oil spills that successive governments failed to address by instituting strong retributive actions against multinational oil companies operating in the region.
Sultan Abubakar however is seeking the kind of amnesty granted the militant Niger Delta youths who nearly crippled oil exploration activities in the Niger Delta in 2008 in their protest against the deprivations that their region suffer in spite of their oil wealth.
According to the Sultan, the government is better served to put in place a rehabilitation program that would involve “restoration and rehabilitation” that would facilitate the process of reintegrating the Islamist militants into the society and end the warring between government and the members of the group.
“Initiating a restoration and rehabilitation program that would integrate the terrorists into the larger society will pave way for dialogue rather than engaging them in an endless war,” Sultan Abubakar said.
The federal government had in 2008 declared amnesty for militants in the Niger-Delta following years of incessant bomb attacks on oil installations and kidnapping of oil workers.
The amnesty which involved monthly payment and skill acquisition for the former militants abroad has since restored peace in the region and increased Nigeria’s crude oil production.
The Sultan believes the same standard should be extended to Boko Haram.
“I want to use this opportunity to say that we have heard in the news that Mr. President will be visiting Maiduguri in a couple of days,” he said, adding that he wanted to “use the opportunity to call on the government, especially Mr. President to see how he can declare total amnesty to all combatants without thinking twice. That will make any other person who picks up arms to be termed as a criminal.
“If the amnesty is declared, the majority of those young men who have been running will come out and embrace that amnesty and some of them have already come out because we have heard some of the stories in the papers. Even if it is one person and he denounces terrorism it is the duty of government to accept that one person and see how he can be used to reach others. Whether it is true or not the government should accept that person first, evaluate him and see whether he is genuine or fake,” the Sultan said.
Sections of Nigeria’s political observers however hold the view that Sultan Abubakar himself is part of the problem concerning Islamic militancy in Nigeria.
In their view, influential leaders like the Sultan, alongside his political counterparts, have done little to condemn in unequivocal terms the excesses of groups like Boko Haram, who are known for deliberately targeting innocent people, including citizens worshipping privately in churches, for annihilation.
At best, in the opinion of these observers, leaders like the Sultan offer muted condemnation.
A well-versed observer based in the United States cited the report, published by sharpedgenews.com on October of 2011 concerning Sultan Abubakar’s then-visit to the influential Harvard University in Boston, USA.
During that visit, the Sultan extolled the teachings and virtues of Othman Dan Fodio, the same Jihadist leader who overran and pillaged much of the northern territories of Nigeria during his time in his stated ambition of ‘dipping the Koran into the Atlantic’ in the south of the country.
Many saw the Sultan’s recommendation of Dan Fodio’s philosophy as part of the latter’s agenda to dominate Nigeria and install a regime of Islam over the republic.
Boko Haram as an organization has, while invoking the name of Allah as inspiration for its actions, has repeatedly and unapologetically carried out acts of mass murder, targeting Christians specifically, alongside declaring that it would not cease its actions unless the president and commander-in-chief of the federal republic renounces his Christian faith for Islam.
It is expected that the latest call for unconditional reprieve for members of such organization will cause a volley of reactions from across the country, condemning the Sultan and his call for amnesty.