Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Major
General Muhammadu Buhari has asked the Federal
Government to stop the clampdown of Boko Haram
insurgents, saying Niger Delta Militants were never
killed or properties belonging to them destroyed. Buhari who spoke on Sunday on a Liberty Radio
programme, Guest of the Week monitored said
accused the government of killing and destroying
houses belonging to Boko Haram members while
the Niger Delta militants get special treatment. The former dictator said that unlike the special
treatment given to the Niger Delta militants by the
federal government, the Boko Haram members
were being killed and their houses demolished by
government. While accusing President Jonathan of failing from
the beginning to address the security situation in
the country, Buhari said he has never been in
support of the state of emergency in Borno, Yobe
and Adamawa state. According to Buhari "what is responsible for the
security situation in the country is caused by the
activities of Niger Delta militants. Every Nigerian
that is familiar with what is happening knows this.
The Niger Delta militants started it all. "What happened is that the governors of the Niger
Delta region at that time wanted to win their
elections. So they recruited the youths and gave
them guns and bullets and used them against their
opponents to win elections by force. "After the elections were over, they asked the
boys to return the guns; the boys refused to return
the guns. Because of that, the allowance that was
being given to the youths by the governors during
that time was stopped. "The youths resorted to kidnapping oil workers
and were collecting dollars as ransom. Now a boy
of 18 to 20 years was getting about 500 dollars in a
week, why will he go to school and spend 20 years
to study and then come back and get employed by
government to be paid N100,000 a month, that is if he is lucky to get employment. "So kidnapping becomes very rampant in the
South -South and the South -East. They kidnapped
people and were collecting money. "How did Boko Haram start? We know that their
leader, Mohammed Yusuf started his militant and
the police couldn't control them and the army
was invited. He was arrested by soldiers and
handed over to the police. "The appropriate thing to do, according to the law,
was for the police to carry out investigations and
charge him to court for prosecution, but they killed
him, his in-law was killed, they went and
demolished their houses. "Because of that, his supporters resorted to what
they are doing today. You see in the case of the Niger Delta militants, the
late President Umaru Musa Yar'adua sent an
aeroplane to bring them, he sat down with them
and discussed with them, they were cajoled, and
they were given money and granted amnesty. "They were trained in some skills and were given
employment, but the ones in the north were being
killed and their houses were being demolished. They are different issues, what brought this? It is
injustice". While fielding questions in English in the same
programme, Buhari said that the promoters of the
All Progressive Congress (APC) were aware of the
challenges ahead of them in an effort to get the
party registered, saying "the road to merger is
quite rough. "The ruling party, with its enormous resources
and its capacity for coercion has seen it as a threat
and they have said it. Personally, I came to realise
since 2007 that Nigerians believe that the only way
to stabilise the system of multi-party democracy is
for the opposition parties that have representatives right from Councillors to the National Assembly
come together to deliver their constituencies
democratically. This is the only way you can counter PDP's
enormous physical and material influence in the
country" He expressed optimism that the All Progressive
Congress will be registered saying "by nature, I
am an optimist. If I were not an optimist, I will not
attempt to contest the presidency three times and
end up in the Supreme Court three times. I believe
we are going to be registered. "There is a law guiding party registration which
states that you must have your headquarters in the
nation's capital that can be identified by INEC and
you must have a convention. All the three parties
involved have held their conventions and have
agreed to forsake our existing parties and go for APC. "At the national level, we must have those who
will run the party. As soon as we meet these
criteria and INEC acknowledge that, 30 days after
the acknowledgement, we are APC whether INEC
write us and give us the registration or not".
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