Kicks, knocks, as Christian Association of Nigeria asks Buhari to pardon terrorist leader, Nnamdi Kanu

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)’s yet another appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari to come in the way of justice and let unrepentant sinners or criminals go free, especially on the ground of the religion or tribe they belong to, has hit a brick wall as some ostensibly infuriated Nigerians kicked.

The CAN, through one Rev. Fr. Ibrahim Nwali, had asked President Buhari to grant a state pardon to Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the terrorist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) while speaking on behalf of CAN members in a town hall meeting with the President in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital  as his (Buhari’s) two-day state visit that started on Thursday ended on Friday.

At the town hall meeting attended by leaders, stakeholders and traditional rulers from the South-East among others, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)’s representatives said:

“We pray that he will be granted pardon, we call on all agitators to cease all forms of hostilities and demand for a nation where the plight of the poor; the weak, the oppressed will be addressed.

Although the President said what should be said, but some concerned and angry citizens were complaining that such reported appeal coming from the Christian group, known to be at the forefront reporting President Buhari to international community particularly United States of America for allegedly backing his tribesmen it tagged ‘herdsmen’ to kill Christians in Nigeria, “no way”.

This by the CAN was said not to be its first time to come inbetween justice and criminals it believes should not be punished because they are Christians.  It was gathered that the religious group came between five youths sentenced to death by a Yola court, in recent past, for killing a Fulani man and throwing his body into the mud, when it wrote to President Buhari not to let the five youths to be killed because, according to the CAN, they are Christians.

It was also recalled how CAN came between a military search mission to a pond in Jos, for the missing Major General Idris Alkali, when it mobilised people that called themselves Christian women, who protested and blocked the way of the troops and it vehemently defended them.  The military, not giving a damn, went ahead with their search and found not only the car of the General but also his remains in the pond defended by Christian Association of Nigeria and its protesting women in the Plateau.

For the same supposedly Christian apex body in the country to be the one coming inbetween a man that is under trial before a competent court for his acts of terrorism against the nation and humanity, asking President Buhari to pardon him, the appeal has been frowned at as “a very despicable act to come by a religious organisation like CAN”.

One of those that reacted to this, who spoke under condition of anonymity, said, “Anyone can be entitled to pardon on two conditions: one, he must have first been convicted, two, he must accept to his crime against the land and humanity.  But in the case of Kanu, he is still boasting that he committed no crime, to the extent that he even went to court by proxy to secure kangaroo judgement against the Federal Government and the Department of State Service (DSS) for him to be let go and be paid several billions of naira.  That is after killing soldiers, police officer, burning public facilities. How can such a person, whose men continue to unleash violence in the South East be pardoned? I assure you, the Federal Government will only regret pardoning him, if it ever does, considering what he did after he was granted bail on health ground.

“To say by pardoning Nnamdi Kanu the agitation in the South East will disappear and this is coming by Christian Association of Nigeria is, to say the least, a mischief. Did the terrorism in the region start after Kanu’s arrest? No.  How can such evil activity require pardon of the same perpetrator to disappear?  It is not true. Kanu must face justice for his crime to this nation and to the humanity of Nigeria.

“As for those that claim that President Buhari does not arrest and prosecute Boko Haram terrorists and that, as such, he should release Nnamdi Kanu, the Christian Association of Nigeria coming at this time into the issue is merely confirmation of its complicity in it all. It has been CAN’s way to accuse President Buhari of nepotism, to the extent that one of its leaders, Bishop Matthew Kukah, even escalated it calling Islam a violent religion because it is the religious group the President of Nigeria belongs to. They should go to the North East and the North West or Washington and find out whether Boko Haram and other terrorists are being pampered, as they claim, or not,” he said.