President Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari has said that Boko Haram insurgency has nothing to do with religious or ethnicity, noting that with adequate education, majority of Nigerians now know the truth.
He said this when he received the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karin Khan, at State House, Abuja, on Wednesday in Abuja. This was contained in a statement titled ‘With adequate education, people now know that Boko Haram is neither about religion nor ethnicity, President Buhari tells ICC prosecutor,’ by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.
He said that, “With concerted public enlightenment, it had become clear to the people that Boko Haram was a perversion of religion, rather than Islamic ideology.”
Buhari said, “To say Western education is unacceptable (Haram) is very fraudulent. That is why we are fighting them, and educating the people. Education is fundamental. Religion and ethnicity are out of it. Some people have just made it a lifestyle to cause confusion, destruction and death.
“God is justice. You can’t kill innocent people, and shout; Allah Akbar (God is great). It’s either you don’t know that God at all, or you are simply being stupid.
“To say Western education is unacceptable (Haram) is very fraudulent. That is why we are fighting them, and educating the people. And we are succeeding a lot. We came to office when things were very bad, but we are educating the people.
“Education is fundamental. Religion and ethnicity are out of it. Some people have just made it a lifestyle to cause confusion, destruction and death.”
The ICC Prosecutor in his remarks, described extremism as “cancer which spreads and can also recede,” adding that what Boko Haram does in collaboration with Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP) “is perversion of religion.”
He said, “ICC believes in complementarity, which promotes collaboration, as against confrontation.”
He therefore counselled Nigeria, in concert with other Sahel/Lake Chad basin countries, to get the United Nations Security Council to “refer atrocities committed by terrorist groups operating in the region to ICC for investigation and subsequent trial.”
