Shettima cavasses amnesty for Boko Haram members

•Says Jonathan’s administration lived in denial about sect’s savagery

Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, yesterday took the oath of office for another four-year term, with a promise to run an all-inclusive government that would focus on reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation.

The governor, who lamented the sufferings inflicted on the people of the state by the Boko Haram insurgency, called for the rehabilitation of Boko Haram members who are willing to embrace peace.

He said: “As a government and leadership, in the next four years, we will be dedicated to the promotion of an all-inclusive growth; that would focus on reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction.

“This is a matter of principle for us, because unless we want to engage in an endless war of attrition that will be hallmarked by the continuing destruction of lives and property, it becomes imperative that willing members of the Boko Haram sect that want to come out of the bush must be given the opportunity to be de-radicalized and then rehabilitated to become useful citizens of society.”

Shettima, who took the oath of office along with his deputy, Zanna Mustapha, at the expansive Ramat Square in Maiduguri, lamented the negative effect of the Boko Haram crisis on his people.

The low-key ceremony was witnessed by dignitaries from across the state and  neighboring Niger and Chad.

Addressing the people shortly after he took the oath of office, Governor Shettima, in a tone that betrayed the mood of the moment, said the people of the state suffered in the hands of the insurgents because the President Goodluck Jonathan-led administration did not do enough to save the situation.

“The situation was often difficult, especially because we faced a hostile Federal Government, which lived in denial about the savagery of Boko Haram and which also saw the insurgency from the most perverted, narrow and irresponsible prism, that somehow, the insurgency had been fuelled against it by the political and other elite of this part of Nigeria,” said Shettima.