Kukah urges Avengers, IPOB to end violence

• Accuses agitators of selfishness
• Says Buhari must activate 2014 confab report
• Militant group seeks foreign intervention on problems

The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese and Founder of the Kukah Centre for Faith, Leadership and Public Policy, Most Rev. Mathew Kukah, has called on members of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) and the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) to explore other veritable channels of presenting their problems than resorting to violence.

Kukah who was addressing reporters ahead of the Fixing Nigeria Initiative slated for June 16 in Abuja, said the problems of the Niger Delta and that of the South East cannot be resolved by the kind of people who present themselves as Boko Haram, or those who claimed Avengers, adding that the NDA is not speaking for anybody except themselves.

The cleric condemned the high level of extremism in the country, stressing that attacks as occasioned by the brutal killing of 74 year-old Mrs. Bridget Agbahime in Kano and the one on Mr. Emmanuel were unwarranted, calling on government to expedite action in bringing perpetuators of such heinous crimes to book.

On the 2014 National Conference Report, he argued that “the president cannot throw it (report) away; archives are archives. Thank God the President did not say he will throw it to the dustbin.”

On President Muhammadu Buhari’s vacation to London, United Kingdom, Kukah told said “all I can say as a priest is that I have done what I have to do; is to pray, any health of Nigerian should not be a subject of politics or speculations. It’s something I found troubling. The responsibility we have is to pray for the President.”

The bishop also bemoaned the poor performance of the National Assembly; maintaining that in the last one year, “it is unfortunate that the only thing we have been concerned with the National Assembly is the fate of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki.”

Meanwhile, the militant group has sough intervention of the international community on the developmental challenges facing the region, with a view to bringing to an end the “inhuman treatment of the people of the Niger Delta region.”

In a statement titled: “Enough of this Injustice” posted yesterday on their website, NDA said: “We are calling on the international community, especially Britain, France, the United State of America, Russia, China and European Union to speak up against this ongoing terror and come to the aid of the Niger Delta, as witnesses to this grave inhumanity and history of terror perpetuated against the people of the Niger Delta daily. This history of terror, we the Niger Delta Avengers will resist and correct with every means necessary.”