Biafran Group Flays Amnesty to Boko Haram

Nnamdi Felix / Abuja

A pro-Igbo socio cultural group, the Biafra Liberation Council, BLC, on Friday in Abuja flayed federal government proposed offer of amnesty to members of the dreaded Islamic fundamentalist group, Boko Haram, and urged government to reconsider its plans on the matter.

The sect had claimed responsibility for several bombings and killings in the northern part of the country.

The Biafran group warned that any amnesty to the terror group would be counter productive as it would encourage other groups to carry their own arms and begin to unleash mayhem on innocent people and threatened that it government goes ahead to grant amnesty to the sect members, it would no longer continue to restrain militant Igbo groups from embarking on reprisal attacks against northern elements within the territory of Biafra or anywhere else for that matter.

The group however suggested that government should give them a sharia country, not amnesty.

In a statement signed by the group’s spokesman, Mr. Amaechi Nwaofia, the group urged the government of Nigeria to drop any plan aimed at granting any form of amnesty to the terrorists as such plan amounts to treating certified criminals like sacred cows and rewarding them positively for terrorism.

“This is absurd. Any amnesty to the terror group will be counter productive as it will encourage other groups to carry their own arms and begin to unleash mayhem on innocent people. Above all, it only shows that the lives of ndigbo as well as the Nigerian security operatives wasted by these terrorists mean nothing to the ruling clique.”

Continuing, the group said it will hold Goodluck Jonathan and his cohorts accountable for the genocide being committed against Ndigbo in the name of Islamic jihad in the north at the right time.

The group noted that Boko Haram had made it abundantly cleared that they should be allowed to have a sharia country, without which there would never be peace.

“Rather than amnesty, a country should be carved out for them where anybody who finds himself or herself there will know that they are under the rules of sharia. There are Islamic countries such as sudan, Palestine, Libya, etc. And there are provisions for self-determination in human rights instruments,” the group added.

It pointed out that no amount of amnesty would stop the jihadists from going on rampage and killing Ndigbo and security operatives as collateral damage in the name of sharia.

The group said it was not surprised that the Nigerian state was considering the amnesty package, which it noted might include handsome rewards for Boko haram.

“It is therefore unimaginable that a group which has killed hundreds of people in the north simply because they failed to embrace islam is being considered for amnesty,” the group said.

The leader of the Boko Haram has also condemned the amnesty offer, saying the group has done nothing wrong and that it is the group that should offer amnesty to the Federal Government for all the “atrocities committed against Islam”.

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