At a time when some people are suggesting a dialogue between Boko Haram sect and the Federal Government, president of the northern-based Civil Rights Congress (CRC), Mallam Shehu Sani, has said that three conditions must be met before such meeting would hold.
According to him, “to talk of dialogue only when people kill is a tacit approval that the only way to attract attention and be called for dialogue is to bomb and kill. Therefore, dialogue is possible, but there must be three conditions. There must be trust between the government and Boko Haram as a group. There must be confidence and then there must be an intercessor.”

Speaking in Kaduna, Sani asked the Federal Government not to include the Sultan of Sokoto, president-general of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and leader of the Ja’amatu Nasril Islam or any of the northern emirs as representatives or intercessors.

“The government of President Goodluck Jonathan depends on the Sultan of Sokoto and the emirs, a 100 per cent, to broker a dialogue with the Boko Haram group. But the Boko Haram group has no respect for the Sultan and the emirs. They don’t believe them,” he says.
Shehu said that the current democracy has been hijacked by those, he accused of taking part in the “General Abdulsalam’s unorganised transition programme.”
He made a stunning analysis of why those who are afraid of a break-up of the country should have a re-think.

Could you tell us about your experiences as an activist?
If I can remember, in the course of our struggle to do away with military dictatorship and establish democracy in this country, we have made sacrifices, suffered for our beliefs and our struggles. The struggle during the military was to restore democracy. And the struggle now is to ensure that we have good governance and genuine constitutional rule. In the course of this struggle, I have been arrested several times and jailed. I have been to Kaduna, Kirikiri, Port Harcourt, Owerri and Aba Prisons. I have also been detained in many police and military cells. I have worn handcuffs in my hands and legs and have been in and out of several Black Maria. I have also been tortured. I have been tried before a military tribunal and once sentenced for treason.

I am one of the longest serving political detainees under the Abacha regime. I was in prison until democracy was restored in 1999. My experiences in prison have strengthened my resolve, commitment and interest in my country. So, whatever we are doing today has its roots in the fact that we have paid enormous price to see that democracy is restored in Nigeria. So, you are right to say that we are inspired by our struggle for democracy and good governance. In 1995, I was sitting in my house after coming from a meeting of the Campaign for Democracy in Lagos, which was chaired by Beko Ransome-Kuti when some groups of police and military men came and arrested me. I was arrested and taken to a police cell in Kaduna and then to prison and eventually flown to Lagos.
It was while at the Lagos Airport that I discovered that the like of the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua were also arrested. We were all then taken to Alagbon Police Station and from there to the Police Headquarters. We were then transferred to the Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison. It was there that we were shown our certificate of detention, which was then called Decree 2 Detention of Persons without Trial. We were kept in Kirikiri Prison until some journalists, Chris Anyanwu, George Mba, Kunle Ajibade were arrested and brought to join us in the cell. Later, some young military officers, Col. Lawan Gwadabe, Col. Bello Fadile and several others were picked up and added to us in the prison. Later, Dr. Beko Kuti was also arrested and brought in. We had groups that comprised human rights activists, military officers, journalists and other civilians. It was in the same process that former President Olusegun Obasanjo was also brought to join us in the cell. We were all there for about four months without anybody telling us what we have done.