Governor Kashim Shettima has criticized the philosophy of the outlawed Boko Haram sect who claim to be fighting an holy war, insisting that that even the Quran instructs that women and children be protected during war.

The governor said this at the swearing in of a new Grand Khadi and two permanent secretaries on Wednesday in Maiduguri.

He said, “Allah might have made the Prophet (SAW) to have only one surviving child who happened to be a woman probably to underscore how precious a girl child is. Allah has created the girl-child with very enduring love for her parents, brothers and sisters. The love of a girl- child to parents is relatively everlasting.”

Shettima stated that it is indeed heartbreaking that over 200 daughters of Borno are being detained in an unknown location by terrorists who claim to be devoted Muslims, “whereas Allah who created all of us has mandated us to protect women, to support them, to serve them with special attention and to even spare them during Islamic holy wars that the Boko Haram claim to be fighting”.

In his charge to the new appointees, the governor appealed to them to work in harmony with each other in order to promote a just and fair judicial system.

He urged the new Grand Khadi, Umar Ramat Munkaila, to carry other Khadis along and work as a family so that the panel, which comprises the three khadis, will be a harmonious one that will ensure dispensation of justice in accordance with the provisions of law.

The appointment and subsequent swearing in of the new officials followed the retirement of former occupiers of the positions.

Mukaila was elevated from the State Sharia Court of Appeal, while the permanent secretaries are Adamu Idrisa Timta and Abba Kaka Abba Jato.