“ No Ceasefire Deal With Boko Haram Terrorists In Nigeria” – President Jonathan

In what appears as a contradiction of
a ceasefire deal announced last week
by Special Duties Minister, Kabiru
Turaki, President Goodluck Jonathan
has denied any peace deal between
the Federal Government and the Boko
Haram islamist sect.
Jonathan, who disclosed this in an
interview broadcast by Cable Network
News, CNN on Friday said his
administration was already winning
the war against terrorist groups in the
country. This, however, contradicted
an earlier claim by Turaki who had
said the Federal Government has a
ceasefire understanding with the
mainstream Boko Haram led by the
late Mohammed Yusuf. He had said
the government was working on
broader terms for the ceasefire and
will unfold it soon.
"We have reached an understanding
with them (Boko Haram) for ceasefire,
which they have already directed and
which we have accepted. We are
working on the formal agreement
which will follow in due course."
But in his response to a question on
the ceasefire talk, Jonathan
emphatically said no such thing took
place. His words: "No negotiation, no.
In some other parts of the world, I
don't want to mention names here, it
is not negotiation. The issue is that
am not begging. But if you are
somebody's daughter and you are
not doing what is right, if you are in a
secondary school or you are in a
school and people observe that this
young lady is not doing what is right,
the way she dresses, the way you talk,
some people will come through the
mother to talk to the daughter or your
school teacher to do that. That is what
we are doing. It is not negotiation."
He said the concept of terrorism is
totally strange to Nigeria and will not
be allowed to have any root in the
country. According to him, "Of course
terror attacks and suicide bombing
was not known in our country before.
It is the newest security challenge we
have and when it started as it were,
we did not have the terror
architecture and the time to deal with
terror so we decided to deal with the
ordinary criminals. But when it came
we were taken aback but now we are
building up. Recently, there was an
attack in a school where 29 students
were killed. But in terms of the
frequency of the incident happening,
it has gone down drastically and we
are working very hard and I believe if
you are to interview me again
probably in three months time, you
would praise me that the government
has tried in terms of fighting terrorism
in Nigeria."
On the approach being used to fight
the scourge, Jonathan said: "Of
course, you tackle terror from various
angles. First of all, you must stop them
or reduce their effect by military
intervention. That we have done, and
that is why we declared a state of
emergency in the three states, where
those terror attacks were
predominant. In Nigeria, for you to
enter a house, whether a living home,
a factory or a religious place, you
must get a search warrant approved
by a court but where you declare a
state of emergency, the security
people are free to enter even your
bedroom if they suspect there is a
criminal there. So, the issue of state of
emergency helps security people to
search freely without contravening
any law and we are doing that and it
is helping us to apprehend a good
number of them.