Nigeria’s Northern Elders’ Forum has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to consider amnesty for insurgent groups in the Northern region, in his programmes to overcome security challenges in the country.
Addressing State House correspondents after the meeting, the spokesperson for the Forum and former Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, said that the meeting centred mainly on national security
The president said that government has never said that there will be no amnesty but that there must be a process and structure if amnesty is to succeed. Again, we discussed extensively on the amnesty that took place in the Niger Delta which attracted extensive discussions and the platforms that were set up to discuss with the militants.
“The president said that no one has ever said that there will not be amnesty but there must be certain conditions for amnesty to be useful in the process of using it as a mechanism for achieving peace as it relates to the Boko Haram insurgence. The president further said that he is indeed engaged in extensive consultations with quite a number of key leaders in relation to the issue of amnesty and that further consultations are going on within the week to take a look at it and see how feasible could it be,” Maku said.
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