There is nothing wrong in last Thursday's killing of Boko Haram Islamic sect leader Muhammad Yusuf and the Nigerian Army and Police directed to crush the uprising should not be blamed for the apparent extra-judicial killings during the crisis, the chairman, Kano State Council of Ulama Sheikh Ibrahim Khalil said in Kano yesterday.

Sheikh Khalil was asked by Daily Trust to comment on the seeming extra-judicial killings of Boko Haram sect leader Muhammad Yusuf and his followers in last week's uprisings in Bauchi, Potiskum and Maiduguri in which at least 700 persons, most of whom were members of the Islamic radical group, were killed.

The Muslim cleric said the army and police had to shoot in self-defence, given the fact that members of the militant Islamic group were in possession of equally dangerous weapons.

He said the "so-called power of mysterious disappearance the sect leader and some of his followers were said to have possessed was also a thing of concern to the security forces directed to quell the upheaval. He also said reading from their ideology, members of the radical Islamic sect are so die-hard that even women and small boys among them could confront the army and police in combat, and so the security forces could not in any way take chances.

From his understanding of the security training, according to him, 90 per cent of the Nigerian Army and police personnel were not trained in target shooting, but only how to shoot. And in this case, he also said, the security forces should not be castigated for any extra-judicial killings during the sect's uprisings because members of the militant group had no special identity that would so differentiate them from the other peace-loving public.

Sheikh Khalil said another point worthy of note was that the sect leader and his followers in the first place made their religious ideology known that they were all out to fight government and its establishments, especially the security outfit, because, according to them, were not built in line with Islamic culture and tradition.

Explaining that Islam does not encourage killing of innocent lives in any form, the cleric however said there could be emotional action on the part of some security forces deployed to crush the militants.

He said only God knows those who killed innocent lives among the security forces during the crisis and the person who intentionally committed the crime.

While describing the incident as unfortunate, the Boko Haram ideology was not a new thing in Nigeria, especially the North as it has been in existence for more than 100 years now. The problem, according to him, began when the Europeans first came to the Northern Nigeria for colonization and the people, especially Muslims, resisted and refused to follow the Whiteman's way of life.

Sheikh Khalil however called for a deep study of the situation by Nigerian government with a view to proffering a permanent solution. He partly blamed government, especially civilian one, for its inability to take pro-active measures despite all the available security reports on the dicey situation.

Leader's, according to him, should learn for success. "But how and when? This is very important. Government should always be proactive in security matters. The Boko Haram sect leader Muhammad Yusuf and his followers were not Nigerians in the first place and everybody, including government, knows this fact", he said.

He recalled that leader of the 1981 Maitatsine uprising in Kano, Mamman Marwa Maitatsine, was not a Nigerian and he preached the same ideology the Boko Haram followers are propagating today. If government is really taking pro-active measures, all these problems would not recur, he said.