Jonathan Using Boko Haram For 2015 Ambition – Waku

The vice chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Senator Joseph Waku, has alleged that President Goodluck Jonathan is fuelling Boko Haram in the north to weaken the region in order to realise his 2015 presidential bid.

Waku claimed that “the federal government is surely responsible for the insecurity in the north; the government is fuelling Boko Haram and insurgency in the north”.

In a reaction last night, the presidency described Waku’s comments as illogical and falling short of common reasoning.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, told LEADERSHIP SUNDAY that there was no correlation between the 2015 and the security challenges he was “patching to stitch together.”

The ACF chieftain had during a live programme on a Kaduna-based radio station yesterday, which was monitored by LEADERSHIP SUNDAY, said the entire system of Nigeria’s democracy system collapsed since the Olusegun Obasanjo era.

“I said this because the president and the commander-in-chief knows there are Boko Haram in the army, police, State Security Service (SSS), in his cabinet. They are even in the civil service, in the judiciary and parliament, yet he is not doing anything about it,” he said.

He alleged that the president does not bother about the lives of ordinary Nigerians, adding: “There is no reason for this Boko Haram. There is nothing wrong in dialoguing with the Boko Haram. Former governor of Borno State Modu Sheriff started Boko Haram; he should have been arrested and tried.

Abati said: “I find it shocking that anybody at all who lives in this country could make that kind of statement, not to talk of somebody who has served the country as a Senator because the comment does not make sense.

“It is illogical and falls short of common reasoning. The thing to note is that that government has made tremendous progress in dealing with the challenge of terrorism, specifically, the Boko Haram menace and it is one major area of progress that is very visible.

That, you know people have commented upon. It is not something that you can take away from this government. A lot has been achieved in terms of protecting the lives and properties of Nigeria from the threats of the kind of violence that you have described. I think that is what is important.

“Some persons that have been arrested at anytime or the other have been taken to court. At least, one prominent Senator still has a case to answer in court and the case is ongoing. One of the things that the security agencies try not to do is to put everything that they are doing in this regards in the public domain .