The call by the Borno Elders Forum recently thatformer President Goodluck Jonathan be taken to the International Criminal Court of Justice at The Hague to face charges of genocide against the people of the North-East has again exposed the forum’s sympathy for the Boko Haram sect.
The forum had in several statements not hidden its soft spot for the sect which since the past six years had killed, maimed and displaced thousands in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, among others.
It was at the forefront of the campaign to stop the Jonathan administration from confronting the sect militarily. Rather than an all-out battle against the sect, the forum wanted the Federal Government to grant the insurgents amnesty.
Working with other groups which had sympathy for the sect but masqueraded as civil society/human rights activists, the forum saw the decision of the Jonathan administration to confront Boko Haram insurgents militarily as against Muslims and never hid its displeasure. It went all out to paint the government in bad light while presenting the insurgents as people who were being persecuted for no just cause. At some point, the forum even asked that troops sent to battle the insurgents be pulled out of Borno and other states.
When these are added to the latest call by the forum for the prosecution of Jonathan, the forum leaves no one in doubt as to where its sympathy lies. It clearly shows that the forum would rather have Boko Haram insurgents dismember and disunite Nigeria and Nigerians than Jonathan using all to conquer them by all means including military, something which he was under obligation constitutionally to do. Source: Daily Times
