CAN Urges U.S., Others To Designate Boko Haram As Terrorist Organisation

UYO, May 24, (THEWILL) - Distressed by the endless killings of Christians and other innocent Nigerians by the Boko Haram Islamist sect, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has urged the United States of America and other Western countries to declare the radical group as a terrorist organisation.

CAN took the position on Thursday at the end of its extra-ordinary National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held at the Ibom Le Meridien and Golf Resort, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

Briefing journalists on the observations of CAN on the Boko Haram insurgency and the resolutions reached on the issue, CAN’s National President, Bishop Ayo Oritsejafor, urged the federal government and other highly influential citizens not to prevent the US and other world powers from listing the Boko Haram sect as a terrorist group. “The unwholesome activities of the group have already proved to the world that it is indeed a terrorist group,” he said.

Oritsejafor described as “unpatriotic, wicked, selfish and devilish” the efforts of some influential figures in the North to communize the wanton mass killings of Christians and bombing of churches in the North.

“Government should let the world know that Boko Haram is a terrorist group,” he said, lamenting that “some northerners are mounting pressure on the federal government and other governments of the world not to declare Boko Haram a terrorist group on the lame excuse that they don’t want Nigeria and Nigerians to be seen as terrorists”

He maintained that it was pointless trying to bury the truth, pretending that there were no terrorists’ activities in the country. He noted that declaring Boko Haram a terrorist organization would make no difference to the image of the country since Nigerians are already being treated as terrorists by other countries.

He revealed that the alarming casualty figures of slaughtered Christians in the North was rising by the day and that official figures of reported killings in the media are a far cry from the actual number of innocent Nigerians killed secretly by the Boko Haram group in states like Borno, Kano, Plateau, Kaduna and Yobe states.

“At the meeting which held at the conference hall of the Ibom Hotel and Golf Resort, members of the NEC observed the sporadic shootings and incessant killings of Christians, bombings of churches, silent killing and slaughtering, and silent disposal of corpses.

“NEC members believe that contrary to the orchestrated excuse by Muslim leaders that poverty is the root cause of the Boko Haram insurgency, the Boko Haram has being masterminding the series of bomb and gun attacks which are primarily targeted at Christians in its bid to exterminate western education and enthrone the Sharia Islamic law as universal in the country.

Oritsejafor said that reports reaching CAN shows that 20,000 Christians have fled Maiduguri, the Borno state capital to neighbouring states and countries such as Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The report also indicated that 20 churches have been closed in Maiduguri alone yet the killers have devised new strategies going house-to-house to strangulate their victims.