Senator Ali Ndume, lawmaker representing Borno-South at the National Assembly and Chairman, Senate Committee on Army, has kicked against the amnesty granted to Boko Haram members.
The Senator made his position known while speaking with newsmen at the weekend in Abuja.
The lawmaker urged the federal government to change its tactics in granting amnesty to repentant insurgents after undergoing a six-month De-radicalization, Rehabilitation and Re-integration training via the Operation Safe Corridor programme.
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Ndume insisted that extending state pardon to erstwhile members of the terror group when the war against their activities was still ongoing would not bring the required lasting peace.
He said;
Majority of Nigerians are against the way that the Operation Safe Corridor is being conducted. It is wrong to be granting amnesty to repentant terrorists when the war is still far from being over. The war must be over before we start doing that.
The military could open up the corridor, allow everybody to enter and start profiling them and keep them somewhere as prisoners of war and train them. After the war, they could be reconciled with the victims of their unfortunate actions. That is what is being done all over the world.
The lawmaker stressed;
The current arrangement where the repentant insurgents are granted amnesty without apologising to the victims and the state, cannot bring about the required peace.
Just last week, over 1,000 Kawuri people, along the Maiduguri-Bama Road, about 40 kilometres away from Maiduguri, returned to their town. Kawuri was where the insurgents massacred 85 people in one day sometime in February 2014.
He added;
I was at Ngwoche with the governor and preparations were at the final stage to return the displaced persons on October 15. The government is also making efforts to return the people of four other communities at the various IDP camps by the end of the year.
Speaking further, Ndume explained;
At Ngoshe for instance, the military personnel there, apart from repelling the attacks from the insurgents, have mobilized resources to start rebuilding, through direct labour, houses that were destroyed by the Boko Haram fighters. The soldiers did not know the owners of the houses they are rebuilding.
