With about 234 Government Girls’ secondary school, Chibok, Borno State still being held hostage for the past 42days after their abduction by Boko Haram, an elder statesman and one of the 492 delegates to the on-going National Conference, Dr. Kunle Olajide has appealed to the federal government to accede to the condition given by the insurgent for their release.
Boko Haram had in a recent video tape released by their leader, Abubakar Shekau, said the condition for the release of the girls was for the government to set free members and family members of the Boko Haram being held in prisons by the government.
Reacting to a question on the way out of the logjam, Olajide told THISDAY that “Chibok is a product of long years of mis-governance and misrule; misapplication of resources, wastage and corruption. Chibok saga is a product of the menace that has been long-standing in this country,.
Olajide, a federal government nominee to the conference said, “as far as am concerned, I will be prepared to swap anything that is swappable for the release of these innocent girls. I will swap the most hardened criminal for these innocent girls to be freed. I will trade off anything possible for these girls to be released.”
Reminded that there were claims that government didn’t know the terroeis Olajide retorted: “Of course we know them. Government has negotiated with them before. There is the Turaki’s Committee; Olusegun Obasanjo had visited them before. Sanni of recent was a link person and of course too, my own friend Datti Ahmed has been the major link. We know them.
“They are human beings from Nigeria and without being labeled, I want to say that some of Northern leaders too know them very well because I have not even seen some of them criticising them vigorously (except very few of these leaders); so for me, I will trade off anything to make sure that these innocent girls are released to their parents. You can imagine the level of trauma.”
On the Yoruba agenda to the conference, which centered on regionalism, Olajide was optimistic that there would be light at the end of the tunnel, stressing that, “we are making progress with Yoruba agenda. Even the restructuring committee made states as federating units as against regionalism that we are advocating and they have made allowance in their report that states willing to merge can do so and that states willing to collaborate can be made to have a coordinating unit like the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN). The ultimate agenda of Yoruba’s is regionalism because that was our golden era in Yoruba land.”
He added: “For us in Yoruba land, the ideal thing is regionalism, but of course we must not be too rigid because if any zone says it would be too rigid, we won’t go anywhere,” he added.
So, it is a matter of give and take. The preponderance of Yoruba people want regionalism in such a way that power would be devolved from the centre to the region's
Source THISDAY
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