The Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar El-Kanemi, said on Sunday that 14, out of 59 district heads in his kingdom, had been killed by the terrorist Islamic sect, Boko Haram.
El-Kanemi said the traditional institution in the North had become the target of the terrorists because the monarchs had been cooperating with security agents in dealing with the insurgents.
The Shehu, who is also the Chancellor of the Niger Delta University, spoke in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, when he visited Governor Seriake Dickson, a statement by the governor’s spokesperson, Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson, said.
He said the insurgents could not claim to be fighting the cause of Islam.
“It is wrong to force somebody to convert. There is nowhere in the Bible or Q’uaran that we are asked to use force to convert people. They have attacked mosques, killed my Imams, district heads, even my own blood brothers,” he said.
El-Kanemi said as the first class traditional ruler in the North to be targeted by a suicide bomber, he would remain resolute and supportive of any process that would restore peace, harmony and unity to his over 1,200 year-old kingdom in particular and Nigeria in general.
According to him, the Kanem-Borno Empire has never been conquered by any power, and that Boko Haram is set to fail the same way Maitatsine failed in the 1980s.
Dickson warned the political class and religious leaders to refrain from making comments that would inflame passions in the face of current security challenges in the country.
Instead, the governor urged political and religious leaders to take steps that would reflect support and empathy for the security agencies, instead of capitalising on the situation to score cheap political points.
Dickson said, “This is a time to unify Nigeria, not a time to balkanise her. The challenges here should not be politicised. We should come together and confront it.
“Our view is that political leaders should refrain from making comments capable of inflaming passions. Our comments should reflect support and empathy for our security agents, and not seek to score cheap political points.
“We talk about the abductions and the killings. All people of goodwill are with the people of Borno in the north-eastern part of the country and I believe strongly that Nigeria shall soon overcome this problem.”
Meanwhile, as part of measures to contain insurgency in the country following the recent arrest of 486 suspected Boko Haram members in Abia State, the state government has banned the use of tricycles in major cities and towns, particularly Aba and Umuahia, beyond 7 pm.
A statement by the Secretary to the Abia State Government, Prof. Mkpa Agu Mkpa, aired intermittently on the state’s radio station, the Broadcasting Station of Abia, also renewed the ban on the use of motor bikes in Aba and Umuahia.
Motorcycles impounded for flouting the ban were instantly destroyed by task force enforcing the ban.
Security has since been beefed up in the state since news of the arrest of terror suspects.
In Imo State, the government has also placed a ban on the entry of all vehicles into the state by night following the unsuccessful attempt by suspected Boko Haram insurgents to blow up a branch of the Winners Chapel church last Sunday in Owerri.
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