Delegates at the ongoing National Conference on Monday commenced proceedings with a unanimous condemnation of the early morning bomb blast at Nyanya, a densely populated satellite community within the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
It was also resolved that the leadership of the conference should send written memo to the Presidency to begin the implementation of the Usman Galmatiri Committee-led report on security earlier constituted
by the Federal Government.
The position of the conference followed a motion sponsored by Modibbo Kawu and 19 other delegates who expressed their displeasure with the recent killings in Ngoshe, Kaigamari and Anchaka in Gwoza, Konduga and Bama Local Government Areas of Borno State and Nyanya bomb blast where over 200 persons have been reportedly killed.
The motion was almost scuttled by Sergeant Awuse, a delegate from Rivers State on the platform Socio-Political/Cultural and Ethnic Nationality Groups, who raised a point of order.
He argued that the confab cannot entertain such motion because the delegates were not served with the motion paper ahead of time.
But a radical lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), citing Order 1 rule (2) countered Awuse’s point of order saying nobody envisaged the bomb blasts adding that as such, no formalisation was required because it
comes under an issue of “urgent national importance.”
According to him, the Galmatiri report had already covered all the other issues.
Falana however said it was high time the Jonathan-led administration commenced the implementation of the Galtimiri Committee’s security report.
The Conference also asked the Federal Government to immediately commence a process of reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction of the affected states destroyed by insurgent attacks.
The PUNCH recalls that the Galtimari-led Committee report, had recommended the involvement of renowned Islamic scholars and jurists that could rationally challenge the doctrines of Boko Haram and
convince them to renounce their beliefs.
The committee also urged states to take urgent and appropriate measures to ban provocative and inciting preaching by Islamic scholars.
The committee’s recommendations were also said to be similar to the treatment being used for the Darul Islam sect in Niger State.
The recommendations include (i) uprooting any suspected unconventional sect to their States of origin or countries; (ii) formally register Islamic schools, mosques and other religious places; (iii) strictly
supervising the preaching and enforcement of necessary sanctions against unconventional and provocative preaching; and (iv) adequate arrangement/provision by government to send school drop-outs back to
school while adequate arrangements are made for the rehabilitation of drug addicts.
The report had blamed moves by politicians to win elections for the emergence of groups that became available for recruitment into a sect like Boko Haram and called for the prosecution of such politicians
found involved in the act.
Specifically on the situation in Borno State, the committee had traced the origin of private militias, of which Boko Haram was an offshoot, ”to politicians who set them up in the run-up to the 2003 general
elections.
The militias were allegedly armed and allegedly used extensively as political thugs.
After the elections and having achieved their primary purpose, the politicians left the militias to their fate since they could not continue funding and keeping them employed.
