*Committee of attorneys-general set up to revamp penal code
Femi Adi/ Kaduna
Governors of the 19 northern States today in Kaduna gave assurance that the recent bombings witnessed within the region and other activities of the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents will soon be history.
According to the northern governors , the current efforts of the military coupled with commitment and support of leaders within the region are enough indications that the days of Boko Haram sect are over.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Committee of Attorneys-General and Commissioners of Justice of the Northern States in Kaduna, Chairman of Northern States Governors Forum and Borno governor, Kashim Shettima said the current leadership of the forum has the political will to make the North great again after the Boko Haram problems.
He also gave assurance that the region will sooner bounce back and become the envy of the Nation.
He traced the genesis of the insurgency to inciting preaching by the sect which inevitably stoked violence and culminated in the extremely complicated and unconventional security situation facing the North-East.
He said it was in a bid to prevent such problems in the future that led the NSGF to inaugurate Committee of legal experts who based on their legal standing, professional expertise and profound wealth of experience, were selected to critically examine the Criminal Justice System of Northern Nigeria vis-à-vis the current spate of emerging criminal offences prevalent in the Northern States and determine how best to incorporate them into the Penal Code.
He explained further that the establishment of the Committee is the direct outcome of one of the resolutions of the last meeting of the Northern States Governors’ Forum held in Kaduna on 11 September 2015; to the effect that most of the criminal offences currently being perpetrated especially in this part of the country like kidnapping, cattle rustling and inciting religious preaching, inter-alia have either not been adequately covered by the Penal Code or not at all.
“The Committee should also look at the condemnable activities of the so called sponsors of the insurgency and come up with legally pragmatic, appropriate and proportionate punishment. The Committee should also focus specifically on parents who because of some pittance, sacrifice their children as suicide bombers. Such parents must be made to face the full wrath of the law”, he stated.