Nigeria: Panel to Study Boko Haram Amnesty Deal
By Staff Writer
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has set up a team to look into the possibilities of offering an amnesty deal to the country’s dreaded Islamist group in a bid to end its insurgency that has claimed hundreds of lives.
A presidency source said on Thursday that the decision made by President Jonathan follows a meeting he held with the country’s top security officials.
The panel is expected to “consider the feasibility or otherwise of granting pardon to the Boko Haram adherents", the source was quoted by the AFP news agency saying.
The committee will draw its membership from the country’s National Security Council which includes the president, vice president, security officials and others.
It is expected within the next two weeks, to “recommend modalities for the granting of the pardon should such a step become the logical one to take under the prevailing circumstance", the source said.
Boko Haram which is loosely found on extremist Islamic and native Hausa practices fights to instil Islamic rule in the predominantly Islamic northern Nigeria, targeting mostly security installations and Christians in its wave of attacks.
The decision to grant amnesty to Boko Haram adherents follows the immense pressure on President Jonathan over the issue, and the rising rate of insecurity that has threatened to destabilise Nigeria, which is loosely divided along religious lines.
Some 3000 people have died in Northern and central Nigeria since 2009 in violence linked to the group, believed to include various factions.
The government in initial occasions has tried to draw the group leaders into peace talks, but they have severally let fall the discussions accusing the government of lack of trust and acting in bad faith.
Despite of a brutal repression from the government that seemed to destroy its network, the al-Qaeda-linked group has regrouped and become fierce in its recent attacks.
Underlying issues of poverty and unemployment remain pertinent, with analysts predicting a possible rise of unrest in the future.
Jonathan has likened the wave of violence blamed on the group as being “even worse” than the civil “Biafra” war fought within 1967-70 during which over one million lives were lost.
Such government panels have initially been discredited over the little or no actions that have come out of them, where often the reports are quickly cast aside.
However in 2009 the government offered an amnesty to militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, leading to a great reduction in unrests in the region, though oil theft targeting the crude pipeline has since flourished.