Group wants politician probed for post-election threat

The Centre for Crisis Mitigation and Management (CCMM) has called for the probe of Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the last general election over his alleged involvement in post-election crisis in the country.

The group accused Atiku of being the brain behind the unrest in the nation following his defeat at the poll.

In a letter addressed to the US embassy in Nigeria, Babatunde Olagunju, chancellor of the centre, said during the electioneering process, Atiku said killings would continue in Nigeria if Buhari got re-elcted for a second term.

The letter reads:

Reports of gruesome killings of Nigerians continue to pour in on daily basis from across the country. The killings being reported in Zamfara state, north-west of Nigeria, however, calls for particular attention. Our conclusion in this regard is not in respect of the sheer number of those that are killed but the fundamentals that underpin these deaths, which are meant to get worse unless drastic measures are urgently taken.

We call your attention to two factors that are at play in the tragic scenario unfolding in Zamfara state. The first is illicit revenue generating activities while these second is political motivation.

The commodity being explored by these unscrupulous politicians and their allies is gold. Because of its universality and portability, we have strong cause to believe that batches of gold being mined under inhuman and war conditions in Zamfara state are finding their way into the United States.

So long as there remains appetite for gold in the United States it is logical to accept that your country is being made an unwilling accomplice in Zamfara’s killing fields. Those that are behind these killings, being politicians and with the kind of revenue they make from their evil enterprise are able to buy properties, invest, seek medical care and send their wards for education in the United States thereby importing the proceed of crime into your country, making the United States a destination for blood tainted gold money.

An additional cause for concerns is the danger of the situation escalating and getting out of hand. A similar resort to violence over the control of natural resource in the Niger-Delta degenerated to a long drawn militancy that teetered on the verge of terrorism.

With the influence of Boko Haram and the vulnerability of youths in the north-west region of Nigeria to being radicalized, the mix of what is going on Zamfara state is a threat that could produce scenario more toxic than the terrorism the country has so far witnessed. The politicians that are presently the handlers of the killers on rampage in Zamfara have all the likelihood of losing control of them. Should this happen, it would be more than the peace of Nigeria that would be threatened. The United States’ geo-strategic interests would be threatened.

They will recruit certain foreign organization to run damaging lobbies against the government of Nigeria, which the United States must rise to condemn as the situation a hand requires transparent approaches that ensure that the actual issues are attended to as opposed to manipulation of facts. We state this to preempt the evasive maneuvers that the identified persons will make in order for them to continue to cause problems for Nigeria in order for them to enjoy their illegally acquired wealth.