Agboola Bayo
Ibadan
Former Director, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan and a member of the just concluded National conference, Professor Olawale Albert, yesterday asked the federal government to involve the former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr. Ahmed Salkida, and others interested mediators in its ongoing dialogue between the government and the Boko Haram sect.
Albert said this while delivering a lecture tagged: “Building A Resilient Nigeria: Challenges of Security, Good Governance and Development in the 21st Century,” at the Second Sociology seminar of the Department of Sociology, Bowen University, Iwo.
He declared that it was unfortunate that the government was yet to take serious the recommendations of various committees on the need for it to negotiate and dialogue with the Boko Haram sect.
He said the involvement of the former president, and other prominent northerners who had volunteered to be part of the negotiations and dialogue team with the Boko Haram would go a long way in solving the problem of insecurity arising from activities of the sect members in the Northern part of the country.
The former director, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, pointed out that the Boko Haram problem may continue for long if sincere negotiators are not properly involved in the negotiation.
He said: “Boko Haram menace has turned the country into one with high capacity of creating problems with low capacity to provide solutions. Boko Haram has graduated through the three stages of terrorism; organisation, guerilla and conventional war through capturing and ruling the captured areas. This is now manifesting with what is happening in Borno villages where the sect have established their own government.”
Albert noted that unless “the government is serious and take another look at the problem, serious in the dialogue by inviting all the sinister groups of the sect and those who have links and have openly agreed to mediate and partake in the negotiation, the sect which has left over 13,000 Nigerians into their early grave may continue with their activities unchecked.
Speaking, Bowen University Vice Chancellor, Prof. Matthew Ojo, declared that the seminar was expected to provide situational relevant knowledge needed to tackle social vices like cultism, terrorism, kidnapping, robbery, drug abuse and others that are hang in the balance of peaceful and productive co-existence and sustainable development of our country Nigeria.
