The Middle Belt Forum has challenged the Federal Government to name the 400 Bureau De Change operators and other Boko Haram sponsors arrested earlier in the year in Nigeria or identified by United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities.
This was contained in a communique issued after the National Executive Committee meeting of the MBF in Akwanga, Nasarawa State on Saturday and signed by its President, Dr. Pogu Bitrus.
The Herald can report that the meeting focused on many issues affecting the region and Nigeria.
“The MBF insists that the Federal Government must come clean and yield to the demand by the Nigerian public to unveil the identities of the sponsors of Boko Haram, especially the 400 Bureau de change operators as identified by the UAE authorities.
“NEC finds worrisome, given the report by the UN that the Federal government is secretly engaged in negotiations tagged ‘Sulhu’ with Boko Haram terrorists through which the Federal Government is allegedly offering monetary rewards to insurgents and other criminals.
“Consequently, NEC is totally opposed to this project and also opposed to any form of amnesty to insurgents and other terror groups who have their hands dripping with blood. NEC is also vehemently opposed to any planned recruitment of these so called repentant terrorists into the national security architecture.
“NEC calls on the Federal Government to identify, apprehend and bring the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against humanity to justice so as to serve as a deterrent to others. Consequently, NEC calls on the government to set up an agency to be called the Middle Belt Development Commission to serve as an intervention agency in addressing the challenges caused by the activities of these terrorist
“Many schools and places of worship in the Middle Belt region have remained closed due to the criminal activities of these Fulani kidnappers and bandits. NEC regrets that many school children and other hapless citizens are still languishing in the dens of kidnappers. NEC further appeals to the government to take urgent steps to rescue those in captivity.
“Nigeria has been plunged into a critical situation of insecurity occasioned by the activities of Boko Haram terrorists, armed Fulani militia, kidnappers/bandits and other related criminal elements. This spate of insecurity has pushed the nation to the precipice. NEC calls on the Federal Government to take urgent steps to arrest the situation and save the nation from another civil war.
“The incessant invasions by Fulani militia on several communities across the Middle Belt region in particular, and other parts of the country in general, have assumed genocidal/ethnic cleansing scale. These attacks have left in their wake mind-boggling massacres and devastations in our communities and displacement of indigenous people to various Internally Displaced Person camps.
“NEC calls on the Federal Government to take urgent steps to return displaced communities to their ancestral lands, given the fact that territory can no longer be acquired in the 21st century by the use of force. NEC also calls on the government to identify all IDPs in the Middle Belt region and provide relief materials for them,” the communique read.