Buhari rejects Boko Haram’s request to mediate in talks

• CPC okays merger with ACN, others

• Gunmen kill two Chinese nationals in Borno

CITING his not knowing any member of Boko Haram nor the cause the group stands for, former Head of State Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) yesterday rejected the body’s offer to him to be one of its mediators in its proposed dialogue with the Federal Government.

This came yesterday as gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram’s members killed two Chinese nationals in Borno State. The Lagos League of Political Parties (LLPP) had on Tuesday asked President Goodluck Jonathan and the Federal Government not to treat lightly a protest letter from the Chinese government, urging substantial measures to protect Chinese personnel and institutions in Nigeria.

In a statement by its chairman, Chief Udoka Udeogaranya, LLPP said it considered China as a friendly nation with Nigeria and a major trading partner and therefore required special measures to protect the rights, property and lives of the nationals in Nigeria.

Boko Haram which last week offered to cease fire and requested among other things, a dialogue with the Federal Government in Saudi Arabia, named Buhari, the leader of the opposition Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) and its presidential candidate in the 2011 general election and Alhaji Ali Mongonu as their mediators.

The leadership of the CPC had earlier urged Buhari to reject the group’s offer to mediate on their behalf, insisting that accepting the offer would mean going contrary to the belief of the party which the national chairman, Tony Momoh, says does not believe the principle of destruction in the name of religion, which the group is noted for.

Buhari, who spoke at the end of the CPC’s Board of Trustees meeting yesterday in Abuja, noted that his party had already expressed its position over the Boko Haram’s request, adding that he could not accept to mediate on behalf of an organisation he did not know anything about.

The former Head of State, who disclosed that his party had officially endorsed the proposed merger plan with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and other progressive parties, faulted the Federal Government’s handling of the Boko Haram’s case. He noted that the principles of the group did not tally with the ideology of his political party, adding that the CPC had never believed in the wanton destruction of life and property, which he accused the group of propagating.

“Well, I think my party has done an excellent job on that, unless some people do not want to believe. I do not know any member of Boko Haram. Secondly I do not believe in their cause. “Ordinarily, if there was a stage where I mentioned anything about the sect, that was when I said that there are three different groups of Boko Haram. One that was led by Mohammadu Yusuf, whom we knew very well in the military. He was a very fine soldier, we all knew of, they arrested him and handed him over to the police, a healthy and hearty young man, and they killed him. Again his in-law was murdered and their houses were razed and the Borno State government compensated them. These things we criticised.

The second Boko Haram was a criminal who used to blow up banks and thieve money and issue statements as Boko Haram. Then I said that the biggest Boko Haram is the Federal Government itself. This is because it has all the power to stop those killings. This has led a section of the country to be paralysed. So how can I represent people I do not know? I do not believe in whatever they are seeking.  I cannot work for either the Boko Haram or government.  I do not believe in what they are doing, in destruction of life and property, and the government does not want to intervene to stop all that. With all the military and security, the Federal Government could not stop that.

“Why should the Federal Government occupy some areas of the country and victimise citizens in the name of fighting Boko Haram?          “This type of thing happened in Britain during the era of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, when an armed group resorted to killing and destruction, but the British government did not go and occupy those areas and inflict more injury on its people. They handled that situation carefully, using the military and other security operatives, unlike what is happening currently in Nigeria. To me the Federal Government has lost absolute control of the country’s security.”

He added: “We are optimists in the merger plan, and the majority of Nigerians believe in the coming together of the opposition parties if the ruling party must be flushed out in 2015. Also the joy of multi-party democracy is the coming together of all the opposition parties to challenge the ruling party. And I challenge the Nigerian elite to go and do some research from 1999 to date and find out what the Federal Government under the PDP has received in money and how they have utilised the excesses that have come to the country. With the coming together of the opposition, we are going to disappoint them.”

Gunmen in an unmarked Golf Volkswagen vehicle shot and killed two Chinese nationals at a road project in Benishiekh town of Borno State and snatched their Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) at about 10.45 a.m. yesterday.

Benisheikh is 72 kilometres west of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital and an epicentre of Boko Haram.

According to an eyewitness and resident of Benishiekh, Yinus Abubakar, the gunmen came in two Golf Volkswagen vehicles in the morning and ambushed the Chinese engineers working on the Damaturu-Maiduguri dual carriageway and bridge.

He said: “We were shocked and terrified with the gunmen’s attacks and killings, as we had to run into our houses, when we started hearing several gunshots on the Damaturu road for 20 minutes.  They (gunmen) fled towards Damaturu with the snatched vehicle of the engineers.”

On whether there are other casualties of the attacks and killings, Abubakar said: “No other person was killed, their target was to kill the Chinese engineers and snatch their vehicle and fled in the same vehicle they came in.”

Confirming the incident yesterday in a telephone interview in Maiduguri, the Borno State Police Commissioner, Yuguda Abdullahi said that he heard of the Benishiekh attacks and killings.