The Managing Director of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has said Boko Haram will continue to haunt Nigerians until their government meet their demands.
Boko Haram is a militant group seeking to among others, convert the Northern part of Nigeria into an Islamist state.
The group has launched a series of attacks in various towns in Nigeria to compel the country’s President, Goodluck Jonathan to meet their demands.
The group recently razed a number of villages to ground leaving over 2,000 civilians dead, according to Amnesty International.
Amnesty International said: “the attack on Baga and surrounding towns, looks as if it could be Boko Haram’s deadliest act.”
Speaking on Point Blank segment of Eyewitness News, Kwesi Pratt asked the Nigerian government to create healthy forces that will mobilize people to achieve their demands in an amicable manner.
[contextly_sidebar id=”ACZ8QVEajrDI2ulbZ7brXhAPt8w2u8lt”]“Unless healthy forces emerge which mobilizes people and shows the correct paths in dealing with these problems, Boko Haram will continue to haunt us.”
“There are fundamental problems in Africa. There are fundamental problems in the world that the extremists are capitalising on and I think that it is important to address those but so far as we fail to address those,… the extremists will have people to mobilise.”
He said though the methods deployed by Boko Haram to compel government to meet their demands were not permissible and inappropriate, those demands were legitimate.
“For instance , Boko Haram says their fundamental principle is to prevent western education. Isnt that true?Of course the method that Boko Harama is using is not .. permissible. They should not be able allowed to kill people because they have a problem with the curricula of Western Education but there are fundamental issues with Western Education.
“Look at the kinds of people we have educated in our country. Are they not the people who have caused as so much pain, are they not the people who are sitting in the Ministeries, government agencies and so on and causing a mess?
About Boko Haram
Founded in 2002
Initially focused on opposing Western education – Boko Haram means
“Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language
Launched military operations in 2009 to create an Islamic state Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria – but also attacks on police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja Some three million people affected Declared terrorist group by US in 2013
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By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah