FG combs Northern states for Boko Haram

Tribune

21 June 2011

FG combs Northern states for Boko Haram

 •Why govt won’t grant amnesty •We’ll not overlook Abuja explosion -Jonathan

Written by Taiwo Adisa and Okey Muogbo, Abuja, with Agency Report

THE Federal Government has ordered a thorough security search around all local governments of the North in a bid to fish out elements of the Boko Haram sect, which has claimed responsibility for a spate of bomb blasts in the northern part of the country in recent times.

Sources in the administration told the Nigerian Tribune, on Monday, that operatives of the State Security Service (SSS), the Defence Intelligence and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), were last week given orders to comb all states of the North and ensure that the security agencies are in a good shape to tackle the security challenge posed by the sect.

It was also gathered that the different security agencies had sent detectives to nearly all local governments where the sect is said to be existing.

“The government has discovered that the issue of Boko Haram can no longer be left in the hands of the police. That is why there is a strong directive that everywhere should be combed to ensure the government is in possession of details,” a source said on Monday.

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Speaking with reporters at a ceremony to send about 34 members of the Niger Delta ex-militants to Israel for skills acquisition on modern agriculture, Kuku said the ongoing amnesty was a limited programme which had closed.

He also stated that even Niger Delta militants who failed to lay down arms and embrace the amnesty at the right time were not included in the programme.

According to him, about 26,358 youths have been documented since the proclamation of the amnesty in October 2009 by the late Umaru Yar’Adua and that the number could not be expanded for anybody again.

Kuku disclosed that of the 26,358 youth who were documented for amnesty, 16,000 had gone through demobilisation at Obubra camp and going through various skills acquisition programmes in Nigeria and overseas.