7th May, 2012
Against the backdrop of recent calls by a section of the country that the federal government should open up negotiation with the Boko Haram Islamic fundamentalists, the Senator representing Rivers South-East Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Magnus Abe says negotiating with those who carry arms against society will encourage crime.
This position is sequel to his conviction that negotiating with terrorists will give an impression to other sections of society that it is only by carrying arms that they will be heard.
The senator who was commenting on the spate of attacks by Boko Haram, especially on Media Houses and practitioners in the country, wondered why people were calling for dialogue with the sect because they can kill while the implementation of the recommendations of United Nation’s Environmental Programme (UNEP) report on Ogoni remains abandoned.
“Let me again express our gratitude to Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi for his resilience in seeing to the emergence of the report; the Ogonis will continue to embrace the path of dialogue even as we mourn those that have died from contaminated water and food among others,” he said.
The former Information Commissioner and member Senate Committee on National Security and Intelligence, who is opposed to the amnesty programme advocated the creation of variables that would address legitimate grievances to check recourse to violence by citizens.
Senator Abe therefore advised the Boko Haram sect to renounce violence and seek the path of peace or face the wrath of men of goodwill because according to him “no man has the right to take the life of the other, it is a sin in the sight of God.”
He urged Nigerians to reject the sect, emphasising that their activities are “intended to intimidate voices of reason and cow the free expression of diverse views by the Nigerian people”.
By Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt