Boko Haram: APC chieftain absolves Jonathan, says Northern leaders are culpable

Former Interim Chairman of the All Progressives Congress in Bayelsa State, Chief Richard Kpodoh, says Northern leaders should be blamed for Boko Haram violent activities. He also faulted those asking President Goodluck Jonathan to resign due to the abduction of over 200 female students of Government Girls’ Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State. In an interview with The Punch, the former Security Adviser to former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva, described the call as diversionary and unpatriotic, saying “Enough is enough; Northern leaders should leave Jonathan alone.” On Jonathan’s aborted visit to Chibok, he said the President’s decision to call off the visit was justifiable because of intelligence reports and the near mutiny against
a senior military commander in Borno State. He insisted that the Northern leaders should be held responsible for the escalation of Boko Haram insurgency, noting that the past crises of Odua People’s Congress in the South-West, the ‘Bakassi Boys’ in the South-East and the armed militants in the South-South regions were solved by the leaders in the regions. Kpodoh, who served under Jonathan’s administration in Bayelsa as Senior Special Assistant on Strategy and Policy Monitoring, further opined that security advisers to the President might have made mistakes in the initial handling of the insurgency.