Nigeria’s insecurity beyond religion or ethnic sentiment, Buhari tells ICC

President Muhammadu Buhari said on Wednesday the current insecurity in Nigeria has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity contrary to claims in several quarters.

The President stated this when he hosted the International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor, Karim Ahmad Khan, at the State House, Abuja.

He said the perception that the Boko Haram insurgency and other criminal activities were fuelled by religion and ethnic sentiment was unacceptable.

Boko Haram insurgency, according to him, was a perversion of religion, rather than Islamic ideology.

Buhari said: “God is justice. You can’t kill innocent people and shout Allahu Akbar (God is great). It is either you don’t know that God at all or you are simply being stupid.

“To say Western education is unacceptable (Haram) is very fraudulent. That’s why we are fighting them, and educating the people. We came to the office when things were very bad. But we are educating the people.

“Education is fundamental. Religion and ethnicity are out of it. Some people have just made it a lifestyle to cause confusion, destruction and death.”

In his remarks, the ICC prosecutor noted that extremism was like cancer that spreads and can also recede.

He described the activities of Boko Haram and other terror groups as a gross perversion of religion.

“ICC believes in complementarity which promotes collaboration as against confrontation, counselling Nigeria in concert with other Sahel/Lake Chad basin countries to get the United Nations Security Council to refer to the atrocities committed by the terrorist groups operating in the region to ICC, for investigation and subsequent trial,” Khan stated.