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.”