The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has opposed reported moves by the Federal Government directing the Nigerian Army and Police to recruit some former members of Boko Haram terrorists who recently underwent deradicalisation programme.
The President of CAN, Dr Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, said on Tuesday that if it is true, it is condemnable as it is capable of undermining the nation’s security system.
“CAN is visibly disturbed at reports that theFederal Government has allegedly directedthe Nigerian Army and Police to recruit some former members of Boko Haram terrorists who recently underwent deradicalisation programme.“If it is true, CAN condemns such a policy in strong terms and ask the Federal Government, especially security agencies, to withdraw that directive which is capableof compromising the nation’s security system,” Ayokunle said in the statement signed by his spokesman, Pastor Adebayo Oladeji.
He also urged the Federal Government to caution the Adamawa State Government against hasty implementation of the death sentence passed on five Christian youths alleged to have killed a Fulani herdsman.He cited reports that Justice Abdul-Azeez Waziri of a High Court in Adamawa State recently sentenced Alex Amos, Alheri Phanuel, Holy Boniface, Jerry Gideon and Jari Sabagi to death for culpable homicide.The convicts were said to have allegedly on June 1, 2017, at Kadamun village in Demsa Local Government Area ‘willfully and intentionally conspired and attacked three herdsmen rearing cattle, killing one of them, Adamu Buba, whose body they threw into a river and also maimed several cows.’
“While CAN is not supporting jungle justice or any criminality, we note with regret how hundreds of our members in Southern Kaduna, Benue, Taraba, Plateau states in the North-central, and a state like Enugu in the South, have been killed and are still being killed daily by some criminals parading themselves as Fulani herdsmen, but are yet to be apprehended.
“While citizens stood helpless at the massacre of their peaceful fellow Nigerians, the international community watched in anguish how government security agencies could not bring perpetrators of these heinous killings to book,” he said.
While urging President Muhammadu Buharito intervene in the death sentence passed on the Christian youths in Adamawa, he said the association’s legal team will secure and study the text of the judgementto prevent a miscarriage of justice and a future re-occurrence
