The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, has refuted allegations of endorsing amnesty and payments to bandits, akin to late President Yarádua’s amnesty program for Niger Delta militants, dismissing a video clip, now trending on social media.

The National Publicity Secretary of the ACF Prof T. A. Muhammad-Baba said, the insinuation must have emanated from a recent interview granted to Arise News by Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, Wazirin Dutse, Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT) of the ACF, insisting that the piece in circulation was taken out of context, truncated and mischievously abstracted to reach some predetermined conclusions.

In a statement, Prof Muhammad-Baba said, “Mercifully, the full interview is available on digital platforms, easily accessible to anyone interested in the full details.”

He explained that it is not the tradition of the ACF to engage such “clandestine, shadowy or anonymous figures in public debate,” saying that given the gravity of the allegation, it has become necessary to clarify ACF’s stance on the subject.

The statement further explained, “First, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu spoke mostly in his personal capacity, only sporadically alluding to official perspectives. Second, right at the start of the interview, he had assertively and emphatically condemned the spate of terrorist activities in Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa.

“He went on to call for the total annihilation of the terrorists and bandits and, thereby, the pervasive state of insecurity in Nigeria within the shortest period possible. Farther in the interview, he was unequivocal in emphasising that absolutely no one in the North, or Nigeria, is happy about the insecurity imbroglio, nor trying to shield bandits and other non-state actors perpetrating mayhem against people, as often wildly suggested.”

It said that Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu’s allusion to the Niger Delta Amnesty Program was in suggesting that all kinetic and non-kinetic pathways (as may be found expedient) to dealing with the insecurity problem should be employed by the government, including variants of late President Yarádua’s approach to solving the Niger Delta crisis.

The statement noted that “he did not categorically propose the unadulterated application of the same pathway, stating that anyone suggesting such solutions was only stating an opinion”.

He said nowhere in the interview did Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu refer to the terrorists and bandits with their primordial characteristics such as ethnicity, religion, stressing that “conclusions or impressions that suggest otherwise remain the vile reactions of some mischievous, clandestine and shadowy group(s) and/or individual(s)”.

“ACF hereby makes it categorically and unambiguously clear that at no time has the organisation called for any amnesty in favour of any terrorists or bandits and therefore rejects, in its entirety in its entirety, any insinuation to the contrary.

“As always, ACF pledges full and unalloyed support to the Government and the security agencies in their various endeavours to stamp out the scourge of terrorism and banditry in Nigeria.”