Boko Haram Has Genuine Grievances - Obasanjo

Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has said
that the terror group, Boko Haram has a genuine
reason to be angry.
Olusegun Obasanjo
Punch reports that the ex President made this
known yesterday while criticizing the level of
response of the Goodluck Jonathan administration
to the insurgent. While driving home his point that
the Boko Haram insurgents have legitimate
grievances, Obasanjo highlighted that low level of
education is a great contributory factor to the.
The ex-President spoke on Monday during a global
education conference in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates was quoted saying,
“They (Boko Haram) have legitimate grievances. We
don’t need anyone to tell us that that is a problem: a
problem of disparity, a problem of marginalisation.
“The response of the government initially was
definitely not enough. When Boko Haram started
showing their fangs about four years ago, the
reaction should have been firm and unmistakable,”
he added.
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Using his his carrot-and-stick approach to solving
the insurgency by the sect, Obasanjo added that the
heat that the sect was facing from the military at the
moment could force it to dialogue with the
government.
“If Boko Haram is ready to talk, we should talk. But
they will need to be pounded a little bit by the
military and then, they would be ready to talk,” he
said.
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Obasanjo added, “When we were dealing with the
carrot aspect, the stick aspect should have been
firm. I hope with that, we will now go the carrot; the
carrot is those things rightly or wrongly perceived
as injustice or grievances that can now be dealt
with.
“But the false confidence of the militants to go into
Chad, Niger and neighbouring countries has now led
to a regional coalition of military and that has been
reasonably effective; it has not completely solved
the problem.”
Recall that just recently, the former Peoples
Democratic Chieftain condemned the federal
government over its failure to effectively tackle the
recovery of the kidnapped school girls by Boko
Haram in Chibok Local Government, Borno state.