Northern governors begin search for Boko Haram sponsors

Borno State governor and The Chairman,
Northern Governors' Forum, Alhaji Kashim
Shettima, on Friday, inaugurated a
committee consisted of Governors of the 19
Northern states to look into the activities of
sponsors of Boko Haram so they can prosecute
them.
While inaugurating the committee at the Hassan
Katsina House in Kaduna, Alhaji Kashim
Shettima, noted that the days of the deadly sect
were numbered.
According to Punch, the committee, which
comprises of the attorneys-general and
commissioners of justice of the 19 Northern
states, was given the task to flush these
criminals out and deal with them according to
the law.
Shettima said:
"The committee should also look at the
condemnable activities of the sponsors of
the insurgency and come up with legally
pragmatic, appropriate and proportionate
punishment.
"The committee should also focus
specifically on parents, who because of
some pittance, sacrifice their children as
suicide bombers. Such parents must be
made to face the full wrath of the law.
"The committee also has the mandate to
carefully analyse the various emergent
security challenges confronting the
Northern states and determine how best
to incorporate them into the penal code
for proper and effective administration of
justice."
He added:
"The establishment of this committee is
the direct outcome of one of the
resolutions of the last meeting of the
Northern States Governors' Forum held
here in Kaduna on September 11, 2015 to
the effect that most of the criminal
offences currently being perpetrated
especially in this part of the country like
kidnapping, cattle rustling and inciting
religious preaching, inter-alia have either
not been adequately covered by the penal
code or not at all.
"Therefore it has become a matter of
strategic imperative to review the existing
criminal justice system in its entirety in
order to ensure that it is up to date and
consistent with our current situation.
"The Boko Haram insurgency, which has
been raging on for the past six years, is
one of the many serious security
challenges we are experiencing.
"It has been generally agreed that one of
the root causes of the insurgency was
inciting preaching by the sect which
inevitably stoked the violence and
culminated in the extremely complicated
and unconventional security situation
facing this part of the country and in
particular the North-East."


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