CAN, US chapter, holds anti-Boko Haram rally outside White House

The members of the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans (CANAN) has embarked on a rally in the United States of America to demand that the Boko Haram group be designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO).
The members, who were led by the Chairman of the association, Pastor James Fadele, and its Executive Director, Mr Laolu Akande, embarked on the rally outside the White House in Washington.
The group wondered why the United State’s State Department had refused to pronounce the entire Boko Haram as a terrorist group instead of referring only to its leader.
Earlier at a news conference held at the National Press Club, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, also faulted the U.S. government over its delay to classify the group as terrorist body.
Oritsejafor added that in addition to non-recognition of the plight of Nigerians, the U.S. has not offered humanitarian assistance to victims of Boko Haram.
“America’s ambivalence over the terrorist challenges in Nigeria is a stunning betrayal. After 9/11, Nigeria was amongst nations that cooperated with global efforts on tracing terrorist financing to the point that a designated foreign financier was uncovered running a cereal factory in Northern Nigeria.
“FTO designation will kick off the tracking of terror-financing and arms shipments in Nigeria and elsewhere.
“It is now one year since I testified before the U.S. Congress and still the U.S. has not designated Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organisation even though it has killed citizens of over a dozen of countries and attacked American citizens too.
“Every week, I get text messages that a church has been burnt or that a pastor has just been murdered or that Christians were randomly rounded up on a roadside and summarily executed,” he said.
He also pleaded with rich churches in the country to come to the aid of victims of Boko Haram insurgency as well as in supporting CAN financially.
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