Pro-Boko Haram Bill Against Good Conscience – Senator Gyang

BY GRACE ANYANWU, ABUJA – The controversy trailing the Bill seeking to establish an agency for the rehabilitation and reintegration of repentant Boko Haram Terrorists and Bandits introduced for mention on First Reading at the Senate has continue to generate reactions of rejection and condemnations.

This is as Senator Istifanus D. Gyang representing Plateau North Senatorial District has disassociated himself from the Bill ahead of the second reading of the Bill which would afford Senators the opportunity to debate the bill.

Another Senator that kicked against the Bill is Senator Ali Ndume, who said that the Bill is against good governance and wellbeing of the people.

In his reaction, Senator Gyang pointedly described the Bill as not only uncalled for but an assault on the sensibility of Nigerians in view of the fact that most of the victims and communities affected by insurgency, banditry and violent attacks are still languishing from neglect and lack of the needed government attention and intervention despite repeated calls. 

In a statement by his Special Assistant on Media and Protocol, Musa Ibrahim Ashoms, Senator Gyang stressed that victims and communities displaced by insurgency and banditry from their ancestral homes are the ones that deserved to be rehabilitated and reintegrated as against terrorists and bandits that are responsible for their pains and plight.

The lawmaker lamented at the irony where care and attention for terrorists take precedence over and above that for the victims, stressing that the move is inconceivable, incongruous and offensive to good conscience and equity.

According to Gyang; “Attempts at certain quarters to compare and equate Boko Haram terrorists with the Niger Delta Agitators which attracted the Presidential Amnesty Initiative and Program under the administration of President Yar’Adua, is ludicrous.

“Moreso, the Presidential Amnesty Program was not a product of legislation but of government policy and has remained so. It was an intervention program with a time line and terminal date unlike the Pro Boko Haram Bill which intends to create an agency that will exist in perpetuity.

“By the proposed legislation, terrorism becomes a permanent feature to feed and sustain the activities of the agency which can best be described as ‘TERRORIST BREEDING AGENCY.’ The Bill is simply an attempt to use the National Assembly particularly the Senate, to acquiesce, placate and incentivize terrorism,” he insisted. 

Gyang therefore called on all Senators to reject the Bill given its obvious negative implications for the security of the nation, adding that to do otherwise is to incentivize terrorism and put the nation in perpetual harm’s way.