Boko Haram: Granting Amnesty To Insurgents Is Wrong – Ndume Tells FG

The Senator representing Borno South Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Ali Ndume has cautioned the federal government over its policy of granting amnesty to insurgents.

Ndume noted that the current action by the federal government is unfair, adding that it can’t bring about the desired peace.

The Senator who spoke on Sunday in an interview with journalists in Abuja, warned that the insurgents didn’t apologize to the state or their victims before the government started giving them amnesty.

He called for more resources to be channeled towards resettling those displaced by the insurgents rather than on amnesty programmes for the ‘repentant criminals’.

He said, “Majority of Nigerians are against the way that the operation safe corridor is being handed.

“It is wrong to grant amnesty to repentant terrorists when the war is still far from being over.

“The war must be over before we could start doing that.

“The military could open up the corridor, allow everybody to enter and start profiling them, keep them somewhere as prisoners of war, and train them.

“After the war, they could be reconciled with the victims of their unfortunate actions.

“That is what is being done all over the world. The current arrangement where the repentant insurgents are granted amnesty without apologizing to the victims and the state, cannot bring about the required peace.”

He also disclosed that arrangements are been put in place to ensure the return of some displaced victims of insurgency living in the Internally Displaced Persons camps in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, to their ancestral villages next month.

Specifically, he noted that indigenes of Damboa, Kukawa, Kawuri, and Ngoshe, among others, would be assisted to their ancestral homes by soldiers as from October 15.