A NATION UNDER SEIGE OFFERING AMNESTY : "Amnesty is ploy to defraud Nigeria" ... Comrade Shehu Sani

Rights activist Shehu Sani said yesterday that the amnesty for members of the Boko Haram insurgency is a ploy to defraud the government of billions of naira.
Sani, who led former President Olusegun Obasanjo to visit the members of the sect, told The Nation that the amnesty deal would backfire.
He alleged that Northern elders, who pressured the government into announcing amnesty for members of the sect, did so out of fear of being consumed by the violence.
He said: “The amnesty pronouncement by the government is an exercise in futility. It is more of a scam to defraud the Nigerian state of billions of naira. The amnesty announced by the government will not yield any positive result.
“First, it is ill-intentioned because you cannot just declare amnesty for members of Boko Haram and expect them to join the next available bus from their bases and drive down to Abuja waiting to see Jonathan. That is a wishful thinking.
“Before you have an amnesty, you need to have a credible committee of persons. It should not be just appointees of government, but a committee that will be recognised by the government and respected by the sect.
“The committee will be empowered to start off a mediation process by first extracting a commitment of ceasefire from the sect and a commitment from the government that all that is agreed to will be implemented.
“When we have a ceasefire of about eight months, the committee will use the period to take stock of the victims of this violence, the orphans, the widows and the destruction that has been caused as well as the greviances and the victims on the part of members of the sect.
“It should also be given access to visit detention centres where members of Boko Haram and their families or those suspected to be members of the sect are being detained. When you go about this thing step by step, you will achieve result. But what is likely going to happen is that members of the sect will dismiss the amnesty, condemn the committee.
“Don’t forget that traditional rulers in the North, including the Sultan, are themselves target of the sect. So, if you make such people members of the committee, I think you have not really gotten neutral persons that will address the problem.
“So, for me, there are people whose idea of amnesty is extracting billions of naira and dollars from the federal government in the name of distributing it to members of Boko Haram who have never made any financial request. At the end of the day, a regime of scam will become the amnesty deal.”