Smarting from the federal government’s clarification that the eight-man presidential panel set up for the Boko Haram crisis is a fact finding one and not to negotiate with the extremist Islamic sect, a member of the House of Representatives, Honourable Aliyu Ibrahim Gebi (CPC/Bauchi) on Thursday insisted that President Goodluck Jonathan must hold talks with the extremist Islamic sect if there was to be any chance of making head way in resolving the crisis.
“What is good for the ‘Goose’ is good for the ‘Gander’, Gebi said in implied reference to past negotiations with the Niger-delta militants which subsequently led to a broadly successful amnesty programme for the militants.
At the formal inauguration of the presidential committee on Tuesday, the federal government had said the fact-finding panel was to identify the militant group described as ‘faceless’.
“We negotiated with the militants, they are Nigerians. The Boko Haram people are also Nigerians; we should negotiate with them also.” Gebi said.
According to the lawmaker, even though the Islamic sect’s method was unorthodox, their demands border on achieving social justice.
“We should understand what the problem is. The problem is simple, it is about social injustice, may be the way it was tabled was wrong. The same issue with the Niger-delta militants – social injustice. When they started, everybody was against them but when you begin to understand what their problems were, people were sympathetic to them.
“Granted, they had unorthodox means of addressing their issues, so why can’t we do the same for these people? If we discuss and discuss and then we realise that they are irrational people, then at least we gave it a shot. But we can’t just say no, we will not do it. Who gives us that right? We did it for those people, why can’t we do it for these people also?” he said.
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