Three Senior Advocates of Nigeria – Femi Falana, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, and Ifedayo Adedipe – have asked the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) to quickly set in motion, dialogue process with the various secessionist groups and arrowheads in the country.
In separate interviews with The PUNCH, the senior advocates said the Federal Government does not have an option but to dialogue with the separatists.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) had said the government won’t rule out a political solution to resolve the crisis surrounding separatist agitations in Nigeria.
Growing dissatisfaction, disaffection, and perceived injustice have fueled secessionist agitations in Southern Nigeria of late. While Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho is an arrowhead of Yoruba Nation in the South-West, embattled Nnamdi Kanu leads the proscribed secessionist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra in the South-East.
Kanu, who has been in the custody of the Department of States Service since he was re-arrested from a foreign country in June 2021, is facing terrorism and treasonable charges before Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
On the other hand, Igboho, whose Ibadan home was raided on July 1, 2021, around 1am, has been in a Beninese detention facility since July 19, 2021. The agitator was arrested while he tried to escape to Germany after he was declared wanted by the secret police. He was reportedly arrested by the Interpol at the Cotonou airport at the behest of the Buhari government.
When asked whether the Buhari government was considering political solution to resolve the secessionist agitation in the country, Malami had said, “As far as the security situation is concerned and as far as governance and this administration is concerned, you cannot rule out all possibilities. But crime is a crime; there are criminal undertones associated with certain conducts, you cannot away the rights of the government to take steps with particular regards to ensuring that the people are brought to book.”
Reacting in an interview with our correspondent, Falana said the government has no option that to employ political solution to solve the challenges.
Falana said, “That (political solution) has been the demand of many concerned citizens and the government has to speed up that process because the government has no choice but to embark on political solution because outright force cannot win the battle.
“It is the battle of the mind, an ideological battle. If a group of young people say, ‘We are frustrated with the mismanagement of the resources of the country’, we want to break away. What is required of the government is to try and woo them back to convince them to continue to repose confidence in the corporate existence of Nigeria and that campaign can only be won if there is an assurance that justice will be done to all manners of people in the country.”
