President yet to give ceasefire order —Army

Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika

President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to consider amnesty for members of the Islamic fundamentalist sect, Boko Haram, is not sitting well with the military high command, SUNDAY PUNCH has gathered.

Jonathan, on Thursday, had set up a committee to consider the possibility of granting amnesty to Boko Haram members.

Our correspondents gathered that senior military officials at the defence headquarters viewed the committee as a “political move” that would not solve the insecurity plaguing the nation.

A cross-section of the military top echelons told our correspondents that they had yet to receive an instruction from the President to stop operations in the northern states where Boko Haram is wreaking havoc.

According to them, since they only read about the committee on the pages of newspapers, it is not sufficient for them to halt their operations.

Confirming this, the Defence Headquarters said even though it would back any decision taken by the Federal Government, it had yet to get directives from relevant authorities to cease fire.

Speaking, in a telephone conversation with one of our correspondents, the Director of Information, Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, noted that the setting up of the committee on amnesty for Boko Haram would not affect the operations of the Joint Task Force involved in internal security operations in the North-East.

“The status quo will remain until further directives are given. The JTF has a responsibility to maintain the peace and the usual vigilance to sustain the tempo of operations,” he said.

Olukolade added that the Armed Forces would continue to give the expected support to the government to surmount the security challenges in the country.

He said, “The Nigerian Armed Forces will completely back any position taken by the Federal Government on this subject.

“The military will work towards effective realisation of the ultimate decision of government on the issue of tackling the nation’s security challenges without any equivocation whatsoever.”

Meanwhile, there is growing anger within the rank and file of the military as a result of the decision by the Federal Government to consider granting amnesty to the extremist sect.

SUNDAY PUNCH learnt that the Joint Task Force comprising security personnel from the armed forces, the State Security Service and the Nigerian Customs believed that granting amnesty to the sect could have far-reaching negative security implications.

Security officers, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, expressed reservations over the Federal Government’s decision, which they described as ill-advised and a “pat on the back for the sect.”

They stressed that the sect members were very rigid and not amenable to “soft talk” and insisted that the government should resist undue political pressure, adding that negotiation with terrorists rarely yielded positive results.

TA soldier working in one of the troubled northern states said since the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, had not asked them to stop going after members of the sect, they won’t drop their weapons.

he soldier, who pleaded anonymity out of fear of victimisation said, “We are just getting this information from the papers; we have not heard anything from the Chief of Army Staff or from the army headquarters. But I must tell you that soldiers here are not happy and they are grumbling seriously against any plan to consider amnesty for these people. Do you know how many people they have killed? This is purely politics and it will have bad effects on the security of this country. We are against this amnesty thing.

“The situation is even more precarious because some of the people championing the cause of the planned amnesty for Boko Haram might have links with international terror networks.”

Another security official, who pleaded anonymity for the same reason, said amnesty for Boko Haram would not work because many of the sect members that were arrested in the past and placed under a “de-radicalisation and perception management” programme by the State Security Service still went back to violence after they were released.

“The President might have been misled into considering granting amnesty for Boko Haram  by his advisers, who probably want to placate the northern political  establishment. From a broad point of view, it is an ill-advised decision which could backfire and leave the national security more vulnerable than before.

“Amnesty for Niger Delta militants is not the same as the one being considered for Boko Haram terrorists whose only goal was the total islamisation of the country,” a senior police officer said.

Earlier, Ihejirika had ruled out immediate negotiation with the Boko Haram sect because of what he termed the “ “insincere nature of the group.”

The Army Chief, who spoke at an interactive session on military/media relations in Lagos, last week, had said the sect could not be trusted to hold genuine talks with government.

He had said,  “These are people that would be talking about peace in the morning and before you would say good afternoon, the same people calling for truce are attacking and killing innocent people with bombs and guns.

“The Federal Government has in several instances pleaded with the group to come to the roundtable for peace talks but it never showed up.

“Let those people calling for amnesty for the group start peace talks with them. If they are able to get the group together, then, government would assess the situation and may consider another way of handling the situation.”

Jonathan’s committee on amnesty for Boko Haram was set up on Thursday after a marathon five-hour meeting between the President, the military high command and other security services at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The committee, whose members have yet to be named, was mandated to consider the propriety of granting pardon to the sect, take an inventory of the calls by various groups advocating amnesty for the sect, and to come up with the modalities for granting such an amnesty if it became a necessity.

PUNCH