Doyin Okupe lists procedures for declaring an organization terrorist

Special Adviser to the immediate past President, Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe has listed procedures for declaring an organization terrorist under the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 Section 2.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu had last week said the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, is a terrorist organization while Fulani herdsmen are just criminal gangs.

But in a message Okupe shared on his Facebook page, the former Presidential aide listed how a group can be legally declared a terrorist organization.

(1) Where two or more persons associate for the purpose of, or where an organization engages in:

(a) Participating or collaborating in an act of terrorism

(b) Promoting, encouraging or exhorting others to commit an act of terrorism; or

(c) Setting up or pursuing acts of terrorism, the judge in chambers may on an application made by the Attorney General, National Security Adviser or Inspector General of Police on the approval of the President, declare any entity to be a proscribed organization and the notice should be published in the official gazette.

(2) An order made under subsection (1) of this section shall be published in the official gazette, in two national newspapers and at such other places as the judge in chambers may determine.

The Federal Government had earlier on Tuesday published the order of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which proscribed the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and declared it a terrorist group.