The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has opposed reported moves by the Federal Government directing the Nigerian Army and Police to recruit some former members of Boko Haram terrorists who recently underwent deradicalisation programme.
The President of CAN, Dr Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, said on Tuesday that if it is true, it is condemnable as it is capable of undermining the nation’s security system.
“CAN is visibly disturbed at reports that the Federal Government has allegedly directed the Nigerian Army and Police to recruit some former members of Boko Haram terrorists who recently underwent deradicalisation programme.
“If it is true, CAN condemns such a policy in strong terms and ask the Federal Government, especially security agencies, to withdraw that directive which is capable of compromising the nation’s security system,” Ayokunle said in the statement signed by his spokesman, Pastor Adebayo Oladeji.
He also urged the Federal Government to caution the Adamawa State Government against hasty implementation of the death sentence passed on five Christian youths alleged to have killed a Fulani herdsman.
He cited reports that Justice Abdul-Azeez Waziri of a High Court in Adamawa State recently sentenced Alex Amos, Alheri Phanuel, Holy Boniface, Jerry Gideon and Jari Sabagi to death for culpable homicide.
The convicts were said to have allegedly on June 1, 2017, at Kadamun village in Demsa Local Government Area ‘willfully and intentionally conspired and attacked three herdsmen rearing cattle, killing one of them, Adamu Buba, whose body they threw into a river and also maimed several cows.’
“While CAN is not supporting jungle justice or any criminality, we note with regret how hundreds of our members in Southern Kaduna, Benue, Taraba, Plateau states in the North-central, and a state like Enugu in the South, have been killed and are still being killed daily by some criminals parading themselves as Fulani herdsmen, but are yet to be apprehended.
“While citizens stood helpless at the massacre of their peaceful fellow Nigerians, the international community watched in anguish how government security agencies could not bring perpetrators of these heinous killings to book,” he said.
While urging President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the death sentence passed on the Christian youths in Adamawa, he said the association’s legal team will secure and study the text of the judgement to prevent a miscarriage of justice and a future re-occurrence.
The death sentence passed on five Christians, in the face of other hundreds and thousands of Christians that have been killed, and continue to be killed by the same Fulani cattle herders, is regrettably a confirmation of Buhari government’s Islamization agenda and enthronement of Fulani dynasty in Nigeria. But all the evil plans will fall and fail like a pack of cards because we serve a living God whose eyes are ever wide open. I salute CAN and its executives for standing up against this sort of tyranny and operation in an otherwise free society. May God strengthen the organization and all Christians during this trying periods and beyond.