TVC E. Adeola Soetan is a security expert on TVC Breakfast show who believes the problem the country is facing is all about greed. He said today 4th of August 2016, that it is because some of the Nigerian leaders who has acquired international education, has now subjected citizen to poverty.
And out of poverty, they device different means of generating income. He is of the opinion that amnesty should be given to them.
When the news filtered out last week that the Defence Headquarters had established a rehabilitation camp for repentant Boko Haram terrorists, it was a culmination of a long debate on the subject. Since 2009, when the Nigerian State began showing signs of difficulties in dealing with the audacious challenge of State authority, vocal voices emerged, insisting that the carrot of amnesty should be dangled before the blood thirsty hounds.
The thinking at the time was that the sectarian motivation of the terrorists, who sought to create a Caliphate within Nigerian territory could be countered using the soft power approach. At the time, the Nigerian State was on the back foot. The deranged elements earlier propped up by political gladiators had grown into full scale monsters causing sleepless nights for the rest of the country.
At some point, the amnesty offer became a ready concession made by weary citizens who had seen the Boko Haram killing machine do so much damage to the national soul. With over tens of thousands of Nigerian lives cut short, and with the serious damage to private and public property in the affected states, it was clear that the pro-amnesty camp thought of the move as a way of pacifying the monster.
In fact, the monolithic North-South divide, which usually modulates divisive national arguments, was introduced to the debate about amnesty for Boko Haram. It was for instance, argued that if amnesty could be granted to Niger Delta militants who took up arms to violate, and undermine the suzerainty of the Nigerian State, there should be no reason to deny the offer of amnesty to the terrorists in the North East.
