Don’t Recruit Ex-Terrorists, Intervene in Adamawa Death Sentence, CAN Tells Buhari

Jide Afolabi, Jos

The Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, has urged Federal Government and security agencies in particular, to refrain from recruiting de-radicalised former members of Boko Haram terrorists into the Nigerian military, police and paramilitary in order not to compromise the nation’s security.

CAN said this in a statement signed by Pastor Adebayo Oladeji, Special Assistant, Media and Communications to the CAN President, His Eminence, Rev Dr Samson Olasupo Ayokunle.

The Christian body said “CAN is visibly disturbed at reports that the Federal Government has allegedly directed the Nigerian Army and Police to recruit some former members of Boko Haram terrorists who recently underwent de-radicalisation programme. If it is true, CAN condemns such a policy in strong terms and ask the Federal Government, especially security agencies, to withdraw that directive which is capable of compromising the nation’s security system”.

The body also called on the Federal government to caution Adamawa state government from hasty implementation of the death sentence passed on five Christian youths who allegedly killed a Fulani herdsman.

Justice Abdul-Azeez Waziri of State High Court in Adamawa recently sentenced Alex Amos, Alheri Phanuel, Holy Boniface, Jerry Gideon and Jari Sabagi to death for culpable homicide.

The convicts were alleged to have “willfully and intentionally conspired and attacked three herdsmen rearing cattle, killing one of them, Adamu Buba, whose body they threw into a river and also maimed several cows” on June 1, 2017, at Kadamun village in Demsa Local Government Area of Adamawa state.

CAN said while it is “not supporting jungle justice or any criminality, but we note with regret how hundreds of our members in Southern Kaduna, Benue, Taraba, Plateau states in the North-central geo-political zones, and a state like Enugu in the South, have been killed and are still being killed on a daily basis by some criminals parading themselves as Fulani herdsmen, but are yet to be apprehended. While citizens stood helpless at the massacre of their peaceful fellow Nigerians, the international community watched in anguish how government security agencies could not bring perpetrators of these heinous killings to book”.

The body recalled how President Donald Trump expressed sadness over killings of Christians in Nigeria and even told President Muhammadu Buhari when he recently visited the White House in Washington DC that the United States of America would no longer tolerate a situation where Christians are being killed with impunity.

“Despite the outrage that has trailed the killings of Christians in Nigeria, it is disheartening that none of the killers has been brought to justice. We are shocked at the speed of light deployed by security and judicial officers in sentencing the alleged killers of the herdsman in Adamawa state. Why did the court discharge the alleged killers of Madam Bridget Agbahime on the orders of the Kano State Government? Why have security officials not arrested those behind the killings of Christians in Southern Kaduna, while those arrested for the murder of Mrs. Eunice Elisha Olawale in Kubwa, Abuja, have been set free by the Nigeria Police?”

CAN called on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the death sentence passed on these Christian youths in Adamawa. Meanwhile, the body has asked its legal team to secure and study the text of the judgment with a view to preventing a miscarriage of justice and a future re-occurence.