LAGOS
Nigeria is ready to offer amnesty to Boko Haram militants who are willing to shun violence and embrace peace, the country's Youth Development Minister Boni Haruna said on Thursday.
"President Goodluck Jonathan has declared amnesty for members of the Boko Haram sect," Haruna announced at a youth event titled 'A Day with Young Leader of Nigeria,' hours after the president in a national broadcast threatened a "total war" with the militants.
The minister said the amnesty is a repeat of the amnesty deal struck with Niger Delta militants in 2009, which Haruna said had successfully rehabilitated the militants who - at the height of their insurgency - almost crippled oil production.
“Series of integration programs have been lined up for the members of the sect who would surrender their arms and embrace peace," the minister said.
“Let me use this opportunity on behalf of the federal government to call on the members of the Boko Haram sect to embrace the government’s gesture.”
The minister's remarks are expected to trigger a debate why a minister was delegated to make such a controversial policy statement, particularly when the president himself had in the past ruled out such measure for the militants.
But the president himself did not contradict the minister when he spoke later at the same event, organized to "showcase the transformation agenda" of his administration.
“Military alone cannot stop terror or any radicalism. Terrorists have people they respect; they have community, traditional and opinion leaders they respect. All of us can de-radicalize them," Jonathan said, stopping short of mentioning amnesty but re-echoing his offer of carrot-and-stick approach in his earlier broadcast.
“We will - through persuasive activities - encourage people to shun violence.”
The offer of amnesty - though might be hailed by most Nigerians weary of violence - is another policy somersault by the administration coming more than a year after Jonathan ruled out any amnesty for the insurgents.
"You cannot declare amnesty for ghosts," the president had said last year during a visit to northeastern states of Borno, the flashpoint of Boko Haram's five-year insurgency.
His past rejection of the amnesty deal, suggested by Muslim leader Sultan of Sokoto Sa'ad Abubakar III and other top northern leaders, allied with the position of the controversial president of the Christian Association of Nigeria Ayo Oritsejafor. The latter sees Boko Haram as a group that seeks to 'Islamize' the country, a claim many of his fellow Christian clerics reject.
It is yet to be seen how the Christian leader and other hardliners in Jonathan's administration would react to the amnesty offer, or how the sect itself would react.
Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden" in Nigeria's local Hausa language, first emerged in the early 2000s preaching against government misrule and corruption.
The group later became violent, however, after the death of its leader in 2009 while in police custody.
It has been blamed for numerous attacks – on places of worship and government institutions – and thousands of deaths.
By Rafiu Ajakaye
www.aa.com.tr/en
