Fight Boko Haram Like Ebola, NBA Tells FG

Nigerian lawyers in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, under the umbrella, Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, the Maiduguri chapter, has urged the Federal Government to adopt some of its strategies against the Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, in fighting Boko Haram.

The Chairman of the group, Malam Abdulwasiu Alfa, made this statement in Maiduguri on Monday, 8 September, 2014, while speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.

Alfa stated that the tactics and vigour the FG is currently using to fight the Ebola virus if directed towards the Boko Haram insurgents would go a long way in ending insurgency in the country.

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“We commend the Federal Government for gallantly curbing the spread of the Ebola virus. We urge the government to do so toward ending the Boko Haram reign of terror in the country,” he said.

Alfa said that if government had adopted the same strategy in fighting the insurgency the problem would have been solved long ago.

“If the government will fight the insurgency the way it fought the dreaded Ebola virus, the Boko Haram sect will have been crushed long ago,” he said.

Alfa also urged the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the National Commission for Refugees (NCR) to be more proactive toward assisting thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Borno.

“Government agencies charged with providing succor to the IDPs like NEMA and NCR should be more visible in areas which has the highest number of IDPs,” Alfa said.

He also called on the Federal Government to issue a white paper on the Gaji Galtimari Committee of Inquiry into the Boko Haram crisis in the state.

According to a report released recently by the United Nations, UN, the Boko Haram sect is believed to have killed no less than 5,000 people across Nigeria since it began its current insurgency.

Over half of a million people is believed to have been displaced in the country especially in the northeast Nigeria.

Only on Monday, it was reported that the Islamist militants attacked Nigerian soldiers in Baza, Plateau state where at least 24 soldiers were killed and the son of Nigeria’s former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Adeboye Obasanjo shot in the leg.

The junior Obasanjo was reported to be an army engineer, a Lieutenant Colonel at the 3rd Division in Jos, Plateau State.