Boko Haram: Rep Urges Co-operation With Security Agents

Member representing Degema/Bonny Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, Dr. Sokonte Davies, has called on people living where members of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram are operating, particularly in some Northern parts of the country to co-operate with security agencies to bring the scourge under control.

Davies who made the call in an interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt said there was the need for people living around where members of the sect were operating to offer useful information to security agencies in order to address the security challenges facing the nation.

He noted that this was imperative because members of Boko Haram were human begins, who were known by the people and living among them, and not spirits, as some people want Nigerians to believe.

To this end, to be able to address the Boko Haram scourge, the lawmaker emphasised that the people around where they operate, should be ready to co-operate with security agencies.

According to him, it would amount to criminal conspiracy of silence if the people where Boko Haram members operate, continue to harbour them, without giving them up for arrest and prosecution.

He said unless people readily co-operate with security agencies to tackle the scourge, Boko Haram members would continue to have a field day, stressing that arrest so far made by security agencies was made possible by persons who offered useful information.

The lawmaker foreclosed the possibility of dialogue with Boko Haram members, because, as he puts it, “you don’t dialogue with somebody you don’t see”.

He, however, called on leaders of the North to borrow a cue from Niger Delta leaders, by taking the initiative to reach out to members of the sect to dialogue and convince them to drop their weapons.

“Why I say so is because at the peak of the Niger Delta issue, many people came out and said, “deal with us, discuss with us”. And we were able to reach some of those our sons to make sure that militancy was brought under control. In the Boko Haram issue, nobody is coming up, nobody is willing to take that responsibility”, he said.

The federal parliamentarian further noted that the fact that the sect had not properly articulated its demands had further made the security challenges which it had posed to the country more complex, saying, “until we determine and decide what they are fighting for, talking of solving the problem will be a little bit presumptuous”.

He expressed disappointment that Boko Haram’s attacks were targeted at Christian places of worship, a development he said had punctured the notion that its struggle was economic, saying, “if they are sponsored, as being said and believed, the people who are sponsoring them want to use religious issues to gain political points.”

According to him, “people who are attributing Boko Haram to lack of jobs are over simplifying a complex issue. Joblessness is not restricted to one section of the country. It is a national issue”.

Davies, however, condemned the reprisal attacks that trialed the recent bombing of churches in Kaduna, saying, “as Christians, we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We show leadership and direction”, and alleged that sympathizers of Christianity who were fed up with the spate of bombings might have committed the act, and not churches.

Donatus Ebi