Datti Ahmed rejects amnesty committee's membership
CITING the antecedents of the Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), the Supreme Council for Shari'ah in Nigeria and the Council for Imams and Ulamas Thursday cautioned the Federal Government not to take lightly the May 31 threat issued by the Niger Delta group to bomb mosques and other Islamic institutions in the country.
A communique jointly signed by the Kaduna State Chairman of SCSN, Sheikh Zubairu Siraj and Chairman Council for Imams, Sheikh Abubakar Babantune, however, said MEND, in the event of religious war, would definitely be the loser.
President of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN), Dr. Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, has rejected his membership of the Federal Government's Committee on Amnesty, linking the rejection to what he termed his bitter experience with the government when he voluntarily tried to mediate between the authorities and members of the Boko Haram sect under previous dialogue plans.
He said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa Service, monitored in Kaduna Thursday, that it was the alleged insincerity on the part of the government that led to the breakdown of peace talks with the insurgents about a year and half ago when he initiated dialogue with the aggrieved sect members.
According to SCSN and Ulama Council, "This threat should not be taken lightly because of their past antecedents whereby they actually carried out their threats. The most recent was the killing of 12 police officers," it stated.
The council, which said it had been for negotiated resolution of the dispute (Boko Haram amnesty) and had made several attempts to mediate, frowned at the proposed amnesty rejection by President of Christian associations and minority groups, describing it as unfortunate and disheartening.
Datti, who faulted the composition of the amnesty committee, alleged that the chairman of the amnesty committee, who is a government minister and the secretary, also a government official, would not feed the government with the correct information but would always tell the government what it wanted to hear.
According to him, "previously, I made such moves twice and it wasn't the government that asked me to do that and we had reached a stage where, had the government agreed with what we got, what we resolved with the sect members called Boko Haram, by now we would have forgotten everything and Nigeria would have witnessed peace."
