[SPYGHANA] "WE are seeking forgiveness from the people over the number of people killed in the country. I appeal to those who lost their loved ones to our activities to forgive us and on our side we have forgiven all those who committed atrocities against us. I want to state clearly that we have no hands in the unfortunate attack on the secondary school (Government Secondary School, Mamudo, Yobe State)." With these words, Imam Muhammadu Marwana, an influential member of the Abubakar Shekau-led Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
sect, yesterday, confirmed a ceasefire agreement with the Federal Government to end their deadly activities across most states of Northern Nigeria, which have claimed about 4,000 lives and destroyed properties worth billions of Naira since 2009.
The agreement came exactly 82 days after the Federal Government raised a 25-man committee to work out modalities for granting the amnesty to the sect. Indeed, the Federal Government, yesterday, said that it had signed a ceasefire agreement with the myrmidon group.
Minister of Special Duties and Chairman of the Peace and Dialogue Committee in the North, Alhaji Tanimu Turaki announced the ceasefire agreement on the Hausa service of Radio La Belle France International monitored in Kano. The announcement came on the eve of the Moslem Holy month of Ramadan expected to commence today throughout the world.
It also coincided with a vehement denial by the gunnies that they had no hands in the murder of 30 boarding students of a secondary school in Yobe weekend. Although details of the peace deal were scanty, Turaki who spoke in Hausa further said that the Boko Haram gunnies had agreed to lay down their arms.
"We have sat down and agreed that Jama'atu Ahlul Sunnah Lidda'awati wal Jihad, known as Boko Haram will lay down their arms as part of the agreement so as to end the insurgency. Government agreed with ceasefire and will look into ways to ensure that the troops relax their activities till the final take off of the ceasefire," Turaki told his interviewers.
Confirming the truce, Imam Muhammadu Marwana said: "This ceasefire, in sha'Allahu, from the time I am talking to you (Radio La Belle France Hausa Service) we have ceasefire because of the discussion held so as to have peace over this struggle."