Jonathan Finally Opens Up On How 2014 Confab Report Will End Killings, Agitations

Jonathan

Former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan yesterday said that only the implementation of the 2014 National Conference recommendations was capable of putting an end to the myriads of ethnio- religious problem bedeviling Nigeria.


The former President said unless the confab’s recommendation was implemented, ethno-religious crisis such as the unending killings in Southern Kaduna would continue. Jonathan said this during his meeting with the United States’ Congress House Sub-committee on Africa on the challenges facing Christians in Nigeria and the Niger Delta issue.

This was made known through a statement issued yesterday by his media aide, Ikechukwu Eze said he spoke in his capacity as Chairman of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation. He also identified impunity as a factor which had contributed to the reoccurrence of such violence, noting that if those behind previous violence were not prosecuted, people of likemind and groups would be emboldened to repeat the same act.

Jonathan talked about his efforts to end impunity, specifically citing the case of Kabiru Sokoto, the mastermind of the Christmas Day bombing of Saint Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger state who was arrested, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned by his administration and was the first successful prosecution of a terrorist attack on a place of worship in Nigeria’s history.

He said: “That promise was fulfilled on the 20th of December 2013 when Kabiru Umar, aka Kabiru Sokoto, was sentenced to life imprisonment after my administration investigated that crime, identified him as the mastermind, arrested him and diligently prosecuted him and some of his associates.” However, Jonathan noted that his administration’s prosecution of the perpetrators of the deadly bombing of an office of the Independent National Electoral Commission also in Madalla on April 8, 2011 was the first successful prosecution of terrorists in Nigeria.

While supporting the 2014 National Conference’s recommendation for an Independent Religious Equity Commission to be set up to apprehend and arrest perpetrators of ethnic and religious violence, Jonathan maintained that ending impunity would also mean ending these tension associated with the unending impunity in the country.

On the Niger Delta, the former President said he fully aligned with the views of the 2014 National Conference which called for true and fiscal federalism as the way out of agitation in the region and in other parts of Nigeria as interventionist agencies like the Niger Delta Development Commission was not effective due to over politicization.