Northern Governors Set Up Committee To Unmask Boko Haram Sponsors

The Northern States Governors’ Forum has set up a committee to identify the sponsors of the Boko Haram sect and ensure their prosecution.

Chairman of the Forum and Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, who inaugurated the committee in Kawo, Kaduna State on Friday, also said the days of the sect are numbered considering the dislodgement of its members from their strongholds by the military.

      Shettima said the committee, which would operate under the aegis of the Committee of Attorneys-General and Commissioners of Justice of the 19 northern states, had the mandate to review the criminal justice system in the region as agreed by the northern governors during their last meeting.

The Forum said the inauguration of the committee has become imperative considering the complex problems of insurgency, cattle rustling, armed robbery, inciting preaching, and kidnapping confronting the northern states, adding that the panel has two months to complete its assignment.

He said: “The committee should also look at the condemnable activities of the so called 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 pittance sacrifice their children as suicide bombers. Such parents must be made to face the full wrath of the law”.

Specifically, the NSGF chairman said the committee should conduct a “thorough and meticulous review of the penal code as it exists with a view to pointing out its weaknesses and constraints in the overall administration of Criminal Justice System in the Northern states”