Venerable Funso Awe, an activist and retired Anglican priest, has come hard on President Muhammadu Buhari over the decision to free and pardon repentant Boko Haram terrorists and send them overseas to study on scholarship.
Speaking exclusively with The NEXT EDITION, Awe, the 2019 governorship candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP) in Lagos State, maintained that if people commit crime, the proper thing would be to try them, convict them if found guilty and punish them according to the law of the land.
The cleric cum politician maintained that the Boko Haram members are not special and should be treated like criminals, instead of making them sacred cows and reintegrating them into society and rewarding their criminal activities by offering them foreign scholarships.
Awe stressed that the Boko Haram should not be offered amnesty, or paid ransom like the Niger Delta ex-militants, who he said were agitating over the devastation of their land without commensurate reward through the development of their region.
He maintained that the Niger Delta militants were fighting common cause, while the Boko Haram terrorists had been killing Nigerians, raping and abducting women and girls and taking over territories, as they had been on conquest mission.
He maintained that by offering the Boko Haram money or giving them scholarships, the Federal Government had been indirectly sponsoring terrorism as they would not show remorse for the killings and devastation they have been causing the country and the people.
Awe said: “Someone said if you are freeing and rehabilitating Boko Haram members and recruiting them into the Armed Forces, we should also free those jailed for corruption and 419 and recruit them into the EFCC.
“If people are guilty of any crime, they should be tried and punished according to the law of the land. Why is the Federal Government freeing and reintegrating criminals outside the law?
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“What makes them special? Why are they being made sacred cows? Are they fighting for human rights, or are they political prisoners? What are they fighting for?
“The Niger Delta militant had a cause they were fighting for, which was the devastation of their land. What is the aim of Boko Haram?”
The cleric maintained that the Federal Government had not rehabilitated the people the Boko Haram displaced, but had been busy planning to reward them with money and sending them on scholarship abroad.
“Go to the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) camps and see what is happening there. What the Federal Government is doing is sponsoring Boko Haram. That will not be surprising,” he stressed.
He also expressed fears that the herdsmen terrorising the South, as well as a lot of people from other countries parading themselves as petty traders, okada riders and Keke NAPEP operators might be Boko Haram in disguise, who might be waiting for the right opportunity to strike and cause a lot of devastation in the South.
The NCP chieftain, expressed support for the formation of Amotekun by the South-West state governments for the protection of the Yoruba race, even as he called on the South-South and South-East to hasten plans for the establishment of their own regional security outfits.
He warned that the South should do everything possible to protect the people and ensure that they were not taken unawares, stressing that the unity of the country had already been threatened by the way the nation was being governed and the activities of the terrorists.
