I don’t know any Boko Haram member –Buhari

Former Head of State, Gen.Muhammadu Buhari
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The National Leader of the Congress for Progressive Change, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd), has said he does not know any member of Boko Haram sect.

Buhari said this in an interview with journalists at his party’s national secretariat in Abuja on Wednesday during the party’s Board of Trustees meeting. He also said he did not know any religion that would support the killing of innocent people and burning of schools.

The former Head of State was among those the sect nominated on Thursday to mediate between it and the Federal Government at a meeting that must hold in Saudi Arabia.      

Buhari said, “I do not know any member of the Boko Haram sect. I do not believe and I do not know of any religion that will go and kill people, burn schools.                  

“There was a stage where I mentioned that I agreed with one intellectual where he said there are three Boko Haram, one of Muhammed Yusuf, whom we know.

“A leader of the military then in Maiduguri then did what we know in the military about internal security. They looked for Yusuf, they handed him over to the police; healthy young man and he died under a very dubious account in the police custody.

“The second Boko Haram was a criminal attacking banks and market places stealing money. They issued a statement that they are Boko Haram, and I said and I have no regret saying it, that the biggest Boko Haram is the Federal Government itself, because it has all the powers to stop anarchy in the country.

“Now the social part of the country has been paralised, economic activities have stopped. People are no longer thinking of employment, they are thinking of what to eat and how to go about the following day.”

Buhari said the BOT reviewed what transpired in the party from the time of the elections through the tribunals to the Supreme Court.

 He said, “Among the things discussed is the matter of merger which has occupied the minds of most Nigerians. The only realistic way of consolidating the multi-party democracy system is for opposition parties to come together and fight the ruling party Peoples Democratic Party.”