Amnesty committee members not qualified – Northern elders

Less than 48 hours to President Goodluck Jonathan’s inauguration of the amnesty committee for the Boko Haram, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) yesterday said majority of those shortlisted were not qualified to be on thecommittee as they did not meet the required criteria.

It added that their suggestions were ignored in constituting the committee, according to a member of the Northern Elders Forum, Prof. Solomon Dalong, who spoke on the Hausa Service of VOA, monitored in Kaduna.

Dalong, a lecturer at the University of Jos, said: “The truth is that the federal government did not use or ignored the suggestions we gave as elders of Northern Nigeria. On the issue of amnesty, we were the ones that raised it and presented to them ways on how to tackle this issue. The government set up a committee and reached out to us and we made our inputs that the main proposed committee should consist of 16 people.

“We said it must have Christians from Southern Nigeria to be included in the committee. We said in the North, it should also have Christians and Muslims in tandem with their spread to balance up. We warned that popular and prominent people or those with questionable characters should not be involved in this initiative, because it will create doubts and insincerity of the initiative.”

Dalong further said: “In the end, they said they will get back to us to nominate people. We gave two names, but they went and finished nomination in government cycles and ignored our advice, because majority of those they named did not even meet the criteria of the kind of persons we agreed on. But because we are elders and want peace, we just kept mute and continue going.”

[Blueprint]