The Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Resolution of the Security Challenges in the North yesterday said it has reached a critical stage with Boko Haram members to lay down their arms.
Chairman of the Committee, Kabiru Turaki, called on the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, and other northern leaders to help them seal a final deal with the sect. Turaki, the Minister of Special Duties, said this during the committee’s meeting with the ACF leadership at the forum’s headquarters in Kaduna.
The minister, who faulted the pull out of some dialogue committee members, accused them of benefiting from the insecurity and insurgency facing the nation, saying northerners should stand up against terrorism.
Turaki while commending the ACF and other prominent northerners in their efforts to persuade Boko Haram members to accept dialogue, said 90 percent of the work has been done. He said: “We are here to solicit for your support and prayers.
We are at a critical point where we need your prayers and that of the Nigerian nation. “We must appreciate that even though this is a Nigerian problem, except we as northerners take a very proactive position, we need to come out and tell the world that we as responsible stakeholders.
“As the highest political leadership in the north, we need to say enough is enough and then lend our voices collectively, we should be seen as northerners, who show more concern about this. We must show more concern than other concern citizens of this country.
“That is why as a committee, we are surprised that some people who have been given the opportunity to come and serve in this committee, who claimed to be concerned northerners, have refused to take that opportunity, but claimed not only to have access to this group, but claimed to have solution and a roadmap, but have stayed away. It only means two things.
“It is either what they are saying to the public that they have link to these people who have a workable roadmap is highly untrue or they are unpatriotic.
Or they are people who are benefiting from the continued act of insecurity and insurgency in this country. Whichever way it is, it is really unfortunate. “At the beginning, we had a herculean task which was how to reach these people.
Mr. President said we should do magic and thank God; we have a lot of magicians. So, we spent a lot of valuable time trying to establish links after which we had to build confidence in the face of some of the experiences some of these people informed us.”
“They told us that in the past, attempts were made to dialogue with them which they took to be genuine, but they ended up being traps that was set for them. So, the greatest huddle we had was to convince the group about the sincerity of members of this committee and the clear intention of government.
“We told them that considering the calibre of the membership of this committee, it is a clear demonstration of sincerity on the part of government. I cannot imagine how Dr Lemu or Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, will sit down and allow himself to be used by another person.
“I am happy to say that we have made appreciable progress. We feel that whatever we are doing, we must come here because this is the umbilical cord of the northern political leadership. We have always been conscious of what to report to you in the course of this interaction.
