A renowned human rights lawyer, Mike Ozekhome SAN, has urged the Senate to restrain from passing the bill seeking an agency for rehabilitation of repentant Boko Haram members, arguing that the proposal is “madness taken to its very ludicrous Zenith and apogee”.
He postulated that the proposed bill “is an unfortunate confirmation of the long held view that this government has been treating the Boko Haram insurgents with kid gloves, if not outright smooching and embrace suggestive of close affinity or patronizing consanguinity.”
Ozekhome challenged the senators on the rationality of establishing an agency for the rehabilitation of alleged repentant members of a murderous deadly organization which has since been declared as the third most deadly terrorist organization in the world. He expressed concerns over how they will distinguish genuinely repentant Boko Haram members and those pretending to have repented, but nonetheless playing along to wreak further maximum damage to an already devastated populace.
The renowned legal practitioner declared “it is morally reprehensible and ethically odious to reintegrate into the society with taxpayers money, earth-scorching killers who are daily destroying the very essence of humanity, walking literally on hot crimson blood of savagely butchered Nigerians.” Ozekhome questioned: “What regrettable lessons is the Senate sending to those marines soldiers taking on these deadly insurgents on empty tummies and with antiquated weapons.
“How unfair can such a bill for the memory of those thousands of soldiers cut down in their prime while fighting this societal scourge of rampaging marauders?”
He advocated: “This Senate that appears idle, visionless and rudderless should save us further denigration, opprobrium, ridicule and embarrassment, by dropping this ill-advised, ill-conceived and ill-digested retrogressive bill and face the current asphyxiating challenges that daily threaten Nigeria’s survival and assail her very existence.”