Some of the most prominent northerners stormed the seat of the federal government last night to present a list of demands to President Goodluck Jonathan.
Under the umbrella of the Northern Elders Forum, the visitors demanded implementation of recommendations of the larger assembly of northern elders that met recently to take stock of events in the country.
Reliable sources privy to the meeting told LEADERSHIP that the group was led by Dr. Yusuf Maitama Sule (Dan Masanin Kano) who urged the president to consider them in order to return the country to the path of peace and progress.
It captured the issues under two major platforms: “security challenges facing the country in general and the north in particular” and “the manifestation of various developments and events which can constitute a threat to the unity and development of the country”.? According to the source, the forum particularly expressed grave concern over threat to national unity.
On the problem of insecurity, the group which met with the president at the first lady’s wing in the Villa, denounced the current approach of the Joint Task Force, JTF, assigned to end the Boko Haram insurgency and called on the federal government to resume talks with the sect. “It is the only way out,” it said.
The group accused the JTF of extra-judicially executing thousands of innocent northerners under the pretext of trying to smoke out the sect members.
The forum, LEADERSHIP further gathered stated: “While concerned seriously about the activities of the Boko Haram sect, which we condemn in its totality, the elders are equally concerned about the behaviour of security personnel, especially soldiers deployed throughout the north to preserve the peace and protect lives and property. Their mode of operation is unprofessional and has led to loss of many lives in the north.
“In Maiduguri alone, available records indicate the figures of those that were killed by the JTF to be in the thousands, most of whom were apprehended, arrested before they were extra-judicially executed.
“In the past fortnight alone, the JTF has razed to the ground no fewer than 50 houses in the neighbourhood of Shehuri North and Abbaganaram wards of Maiduguri and, only five days ago, in the last week, they similarly burnt many houses and executed a number of people not far from the governor’s family house because an improvised explosive device (IED) was set off nearby.
“The elders are of the view that the current spate of violence and other variants of insecurity are interwoven with politics, economy, crime, ethnicity and religion. Aware that the country cannot achieve any meaningful development without peace and security, we draw your attention to the following – persistent failure of all governments in implementing recommendations of numerous panels of inquiry into ethno-religious crises over the years has contributed to entrenching impunity on the part of those who continue to instigate these crises.”
Observing that the Boko Haram sect had been in existence for over one decade, the elders said that the escalation of the activities of the sect was a result of misjudgement by the authorities, which led to the poor handling of the sect’s activities since 2009.
They however debunked the allegation making the rounds that the Boko Haram sect was a creation of northern Muslims with frustrated political ambition and seeking to make the country ungovernable by putting a wedge between Christians and Muslims in the north.
Calling for a halt of the carnage being perpetrated in the north, the group disclosed that the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital recorded 635 corpses brought into its mortuary between January and December 2011. It also disclosed that the same hospital recorded 65 corpses deposited in February 2012, and that hundreds more were unreported.
The forum stated that the figures did not capture corpses that were delivered by the JTF to the mortuary of the State Specialist Hospital, Maiduguri, and those that were dumped in mass graves on the outskirts of the state. Some of the corpses deposited at the hospital could have been hanged, strangled or allowed to starve to death, it said, adding that there were no signs of bullet wounds on them just as those who were suspected to have been starved to death were reduced to mere skeletons.
The forum, it was also said, had alleged that, currently, the JTF has thousands of suspects, comprising mostly youths in dehumanising conditions in its various secret detention centres all over the country, including an underground cell. It accused the JTF of resorting to acts of arson in any neighbourhood where a suspected Boko Haram member lives.
Charging the president to advise the JTF to change their mode of operation to engender mutual respect and trust between them and the populace, the northern elders also urged the federal government to reconsider and implement the recommendations of the Borno Elders Forum, the Galtimari committee report and other similar recommendations.
Other issues presented by the forum included: instituted corruption in the private and public sectors, arbitrary and indiscriminate retirement of senior officers in the armed forces and the police, suspicious relocation and creation of military installations in some parts of the country and downgrading of exploration activities for hydrocarbons in the north.
They also called for a special allocation for the exploration and exploitation of the vast oil, gas and solid mineral sectors in the north.
Other issues raised included: the disparity in revenue allocation, which they said ignores the injunction of promoting even development; disparity in appointment into federal public service – they called for 50 per cent upgrade in the next three years for the North; and gross disparity in the siting of federal projects as evidenced in the 2012 budget.
The forum, meanwhile, called on the government to collate data on human rights abuses with a view to prosecuting the offenders. Not to be left out, it said, are: prosecution of financers of the Boko Haram sect, release of statutory allocation of the 15 local governments still under emergency rule, depoliticisation of the anti-corruption agencies and increase in the allocation for agriculture.
The elders group, which also protested the continued closure of borders, observed that it has debilitating effect on trade and commerce and thus called for the establishment of an arid zone development commission to tackle desertification in the north, as well as the dredging of the Lake Chad and the Benue River, and acceleration of the various hydro-electric power projects.
They called for the provision of adequate grazing reserves along the gazetted cattle routes to address the incidents of clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers.
LEADERSHIP gathered that other members of the delegation of the northern elders who visited the president included: Alhaji Lawal Kaita, Sule Katagum, Amb. Babagana Kingibe, Alhaji Saleh Hassan, Air Marshal Al-Amin Daggash, Senator John Wash Pam, Gen. IBM Haruna, Mallam Adamu Ciroma and Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi.
Others are: Prof. Ango Abdullahi, Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura, Alhaji Bello Kirfi, Dr. Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, Bishop J. Bagobiri, Dame Pauline Tallen, Dr. Safiya Lliyasu Muhammed, Gen. Paul Tarfa, Capt. Bashir Sodangi, N.A. Sharif, Kalli Gazali, Alhaji Shehu Malami, Prof. Idris Mohammed and Capt. Paul Tahel.