Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, has revealed how the Boko Haram terrorist group was formed.
In a chat with The Africa Report, the PDP presidential candidate spoke on how he’ll tackle the sect, saying the sect was formed by youths abandoned by politicians.
“I happen to know how Boko Haram came into being. They were offshoots of political thuggery. Politicians used those boys in Boko Haram to win elections and then abandoned them and then there were no jobs for them.
“It was the same thing with the Niger Delta. In 1998, I saw it myself and I warned people.
“It’s going to be a multifaceted approach. It will involve negotiations. It will involve military action”, he said.
He also spoke on the incessant herders/farmers clashes and cattle-rustling, declaring that grazing reserves was the solution.
“In each province in the north, we used to have a grazing reserve. During the season, the cattle are in the reserves.
“When it is off-season when farmers would have cultivated all their crops, then the cattle move out to the areas where the farmers have cultivated, allowing the grass in the grazing reserves to grow. These grazing reserves have been abandoned over the years.
