Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed what Boko Haram members told him after meeting with them for more than ten years.
In 2011, Olusegun Obasanjo visited with members of the sect as well as some family members of Mohammed Yusuf, the group’s founder.
At the Murtala Muhammed Foundation’s (MMF) 2022 annual lecture on Monday, February 21, Obasanjo claimed his fears about the Boko Haram insurgency have materialised due to their linkages with foreign terrorist organisations.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who blamed the country’s instability on easy access to weapons following the Nigerian civil war, also revealed that Boko Haram had no external connections at the time he met with them. He claimed that the government’s poor handling of the problem caused it to spiral out of control.
Boko Haram indicated they were interested in Sharia during Obasanjo’s visit to Maiduguri in 2011 and lamented that their adherents had no jobs, according to Obasanjo.
Obasanjo said; “We are not going anywhere until we take national building seriously. Justice and equity. We must build a society where everyone feels it has a stake. The insecurity in the country was caused as a result of the ease to access weapons and since then we have been unable to address the issue; it keeps getting worse.p
“In 2011 when Boko Haram was just rearing its ugly head, I went to Maiduguri to try and find out a little bit more about Boko Haram and to also find out what their objective was apart from being interested in Sharia, but they also complained that their followers had no jobs.
“In the process the government started chasing them and gunning them down. What I feared at that time seem to have been happening at that time, Boko Haram had not much external connections then, the ones they had would be Nigerians who had resources abroad, who were helping them.”
