The Chairman, National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, on Thursday in Kaduna, said the activities of terror group, Boko Haram, started in 1986 when the Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch, Dele Giwa, was killed through a parcel bomb.
Odinkalu said this while delivering a keynote address at the inauguration of Moluma Yakubu Loma Centre for Medical Law and the MIVE Legals Matrimonial Centre in Kaduna.
He stated that Boko Haram started its nefarious activities in 1986, adding that what became Boko Haram started as a state-sponsored group.
“Contrary to what people think, the phenomenon that has now become Boko Haram actually started in an Ikeja Street, on October 18, 1986. That day, the first Improvised Explosive Device, was used to blow up Dele Giwa. Everyone knew that it was a state-sponsored murder. That was the first time that an IED went off on Nigeria soil. Series of events would later lead to Boko Haram today.
“At that time, Gani Fawehinmi (now late) had the courage to challenge the state on that murder. But he was in turn persecuted until his death. The Police Officer, who was investigating the murder, was also killed in unexplained circumstances in Mokwa, in Niger State. He was the immediate Junior brother of the celebrated writer and critic, Tunji Dare.
“When a state sponsors the illegal murder of its citizens, it loses its legitimacy as a government. So today’s terrorism started as state sponsored.
“In its 2013 report, the Kabiru Turaki Report laid out starkly footprints of the extent to which the claim of the Nigerian state to a monopoly of violence is challenged.
“The democratised violence is the symptom that now defines most Nigeria’s underlying ailment.
“Take for example Borno State. Around December 14, 2006, the then Governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sherif, in response to widespread criticism of his record or lack of it, as governor, declared, ‘A lot of falsehood has been published over the years in newspapers about my government. And I have never lost sleep over them because less than five per cent of Borno people can read what is written in newspaper,” Odinkalu said. (Today.ng)
