Northern Elders Threaten Jonathan: You'll Give Account Of Our Women and Children

Northern elders has spurned the benevolence by President Goodluck Jonathan ordering the release of terror suspects from prisons across the region, saying he would at some point in time be made to account for the women and children seized by security agents based on unverified terrorism charges.

The northern elders are miffed that the Federal Government under President Jonathan, allowed innocent women and children, who should be spared even in times of war, to be taken captive and incarcerated in dehumanising conditions for many months without trial...

The elders, who spoke through their spokesman, Ango Abdullahi, noted with dismay that the administration had allowed innocent women and children to suffer untold hardship for offences they did not commit.

Speaking with Vanguard, Prof Ango Abdullahi said: “Let me tell you that what the government did by ordering the release of suspected terrorists was borne out of shame and guilt being suffered by it for clamping innocent women and children into detention camps or what you may call Nigeria’s ‘Guantanamo Bay’, which are scattered all over the place.

“We note with delight that at last common sense has prevailed and the embattled families have regained their freedom. But we hasten to add that this government must account for the women and children from the North, who they took into unwarranted detention.

“As far as we are concerned the release of the so-called terror suspects should have been done long ago as long as this people were not tried or charged.

“To us what the President has done is borne out of embarrassment the government is suffering at home and abroad over the arbitrary detention of innocent women and children.

"The NEF took very serious exception to the latest threat by militant leader, Dokubo Asari to match the opposition bullet by bullet if Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015, saying that it was a threat to national security.”