Coomassie urges FG to dialogue with Boko Haram Written by Ayoade Abeel Wednesday, 20 July 2011

A former Inspector General of Police (IGP), Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie, has said that the Boko Haram crisis has slowed down development and urged the government to dialogue with the Islamic sect.
He spoke in Kaduna during the second Kaduna town hall meeting, organised by CITAR-NGO, a political awareness and sustainable human development organisation.

According to him, the government or designated officers of the government must confer with all relevant intelligence communities and analyse the authentic information available on the Boko Haram group.

He said they should also identify where mistakes were made, rectify and direct operatives to engage the Islamic militants with a view to bringing to an end the crisis.
Similarly, a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Salihu Mustapha Belgore,  said on the occasion that fears by politicians in the country that the military could  take over the government had stalled development.

He said the inability of the country to develop was even compounded by past successive military regimes which had failed to provide basic facilities that could have aided quick development.

He said that this fear by politicians had made them to spend more money on security rather than development.
He said: “Military, by nature, is not steady. That is why politicians are always afraid that another military coup will take place. So, they spend more on security than on development. If the democratic process, which we have entered into, is allowed to continue and totally sustained, this country, just as Brazil, will develop in another 10 years; it will be one of the greatest countries on earth.

“Our River Basins and dams, if well addressed long time ago, Nigeria would not be where it is today. Every successive military government  caused this rubbish.
“The western world will not benefit from Nigeria’s development. Whether you call it militancy in the South or Boko Haram in the North, they are being sponsored from outside. These people are using sophisticated equipments, and are trained outside the country.”