Umaru Yar`dua
The extra judicial killing of Mohammed Yusuf, leader of “Boko Haram” the Islamic extremist sect in Maiduguri, continues to attract criticism, particularly , Navi Pillay, the top United Nations human rights official, who expressed deep concern over the clashes in Nigeria and called on the Nigerian government to investigate and bring offenders to justice. In a media advisory issued in Geneva, Pillay said she hopes the government "makes every effort to achieve security with full adherence to legality and respect for human rights,"
As soon as Pillay`s statement was available, President Yar`dua who left the shores of Nigeria, while the mayhem escalated ordered an investigation into his killing, while under police custody.
Huhuonline checks reveal that President Umaru Yar'Adua has also ordered the national security adviser to arrange a post-mortem on Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Yusuf. Recall that the national security adviser was the arrow head in the arrest of publishers of Huhuonline.com and Elendu reports last year in Nigeria.
Sources who elected anonymity told Huhuonline that Mohammed Yussuf was just a front, continuing, the source said the Gov. Sherrif was the actual sponsor of the “boko haram” and the killing of Mohammed Yussuf, his deputy and a former commissioner were attempt by Gov. Sherrif to clean house and destroy all evidence that will link the him to “Boko Harram”
As previously reported, Mohammed Yusuf was killed on July 30 after he was found hiding in a relative's goat pen. Nigerian Police said Yusuf was killed in a gunfight; however this claim has been disputed by the arresting officer who said “I personally arrested Yusuf and turned him over alive to authorities”.
President Umaru Yar'Adua said that Yusuf's death was a serious issue and he hopes to get the post-mortem report by the end of the week.
Hear him:
"This is an incident that will be investigated, together with the overall events that have happened," Yar'Adua said. "I directed the national security adviser to carry out a post-mortem with the security agencies as a first step so that we can have a full report of what has happened during the crisis including how the leader of the Boko Haram was killed, and the circumstances under which he was killed,"
it was gathered that prior to the mayhem, moderate Muslim clerics and scholars had warned government officials about the sect's violent tendencies — and those alarms went unheeded before Boko Haram militants attacked a police station in Bauchi state on July 26. Violence quickly spread to three other states before Nigerian forces retaliated, storming the group's Maiduguri compound.
Earlier, Nigerian police high command who invited journalists to view Mohammed Yusuf's tattered corpse on July 30, averred he was fatally wounded in combat. Nevertheless Army Col. Ben Ahanotu said he personally arrested Yusuf and handed him over alive to police.
Read more…
Rewritten from the Sun Newspapaers by Akin Osunlaja & Noelene Joshua
The sectarian violence that broke out simultaneously in five northern states last week was initially conceived to be an all-out Jihad (holy war), aimed at entrenching the values for which the Boko Haram Islamist sect stood.
The differences and similarities with which the taliban and Al Qaeda have promulgated a Great Satan movement has seeped effectively into Nigeria .Indications are rife that this sect has links with key polititcal figures in the north intent on sparking off a MEND reply via Islam.
The Taliban is more or less focussed on an Islamic state and has long been the mother and birthplace of numerous extremists whilst Al Qaeda has as it s "sole" target the USA.
A top security source in Abuja on Tuesday said that the group had already established operational bases in seven states, even as he questioned the decision of Governor Ali Modu Sheriff not to act on security reports sent to him two clear days before the mayhem was unleashed.
The Governor thus belies the fact just like George Bush junior in the 9/11 saga had prior heightened reports of the terror that brought america to its knees.Our Views are that this was a calculated and incisive move by insurgents within the Political framework of Nigeria
The source, who pleaded not to be named, said ‘well-meaning Nigerians’ had been sponsoring Mohammed Yusuf in his clandestine assignment, including a wealthy Kano businessman, whose arrest by security services for sponsoring the sect, was quashed by the law court in 2005. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) had, on Monday, accused the Borno State Government of complicity in the crisis.
Another dangerous group with the same doctrine as Boko Haram is said to have been operating unfettered in Niger State.
According to the source, on July 14 and 17, more than 10 days before the group began its onslaught in Bauchi on July 26, 21 security reports had been sent to the Federal Government, detailing the activities of Yusuf and his men whose “threat had become potent, and we knew it was going to explode.”
While Bauchi State Governor, Isa Yuguda, was able to take proactive action based on the report, the source regretted that Sheriff did nothing until the group fully mobilized and went on a killing spree in his state. “If the Borno State governor had been proactive as the Bauchi governor was, this thing wouldn’t have happened,” he said.
Insisting that the group had been preparing for a Jihad, the source said it became the only feasible option when the plan of its members to go on mass exile to either Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia failed.
The option of exile was said to have been aborted because immigration arrangement did not favour them, hence they settled for the Jihad option.
it was when the group settled for Jihad that they started making their own bombs. The operational bases were sited in Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Yobe states.
According to the security source, Yusuf was re-arrested in the premises of an Abuja court by SSS operatives last November 13. He was subsequently handed over to the police after a thorough interrogation had yielded substantial evidence against him.
He was subsequently charged to the court by police, only for the SSS to learn on January 20, 2009 that he had been released, a development that was said to have surprised the top echelon of the service.
Who had such authority to release a threat to the peace of the nation still remains a mystery .
However, the SSS was said to have maintained a close tab on Yusuf and kept updating its dossier on his group.
At the state level, the source explained, each movement made by the group was reported to the governor “because we believe that governors are supposed to know the security problems in their states.” At the federal level, relevant persons were briefed.
Relevant persons ? who are these Relevant persons is it the SSS who knew already or the new security service or the top top at Aso rock ?
Even before the group struck the other weekend, the source said the SSS had information that it was ready to strike from their base in Dutse-Tanshi in Bauchi State. When security operatives stormed the place, nine members of the group were arrested while items used in local production of bombs were recovered.
Noting that the gang leader, Yusuf always managed to be absent from the scene of confrontation between his people and security personnel, but two two hours after the Dutse-Tanshi depot had been over-run by security operatives, he was said to have arrived.
Blaming porous borders for the ease with which arms were smuggled into the country, the source noted that SSS had intercepted information about the deal between the Kano businessman and Yusuf and regretted that the man won his case when he sued the service for unlawful breach of his freedom. It was also learnt that some members of the group had already been sponsored for scholarship in Mauritania.
According to the source, the group which metamorphosed into Boko Haram was stared in 1995 with the name Shahaba, by one Abubakar Lawan, who later relinquished the leadership to clerics when he got admission to study at the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia.
When the clerics needed an articulate knowledgeable person to lead the group, the lot fell on Yusuf, who later turned to accuse the clerics of not properly interpreting the teachings of the Quran. From there the doctrine changed.
Besides the N540,000 the slain sect leader was said to have got on monthly basis from the N1 due paid by members, he was said to have acquired an 80 km expanse of land in Maiduguri for farming to supplement his earning.
Worried that such a dangerous person could be allocated such expanse of land, SSS was said to have asked the state governor to take the wind off his sail by confiscating the land, but the advice was not heeded.
Read more…
Fleeing members of Boko Haram, yesterday challenged some top aides of the state Governor, Ali Sheriff, to swear publicly that they have no link with them.The fundamentalists also said they are ready to come out with the true picture of everything, insisting that the movement is still very much around and that the deaths of some of their leaders and members cannot stop them.An anonymous text message written in Hausa, sent to our correspondent, read : “Al Gaskiya zata tabbata ko bayan mutuwar malan da sahabansa. Ina sohuwar minister takasar middle belt? Ina senata mai cit a sakiyar ta jihar ku? Ina sohar kwamashona ayanzu chiama a kudancin jihar ku? Ina yankasuwa magoyin bayan harancecen gwannan? Meya raba su da ustaz Buji fai? Ai dukkansu sunayin taimako. Sufito fili su rantse idan basu da hannu. Munnnan daku. Idan ana nemar gaskiya zamuzo meduguri mufadeta koda mu ba yankasan ba.”This literally means, "The truth shall prevail after the death of Mallam and his followers. What is the fate of the former minister from the middle belt? What is the fate of the current senator from your state (Borno), where are the former commissioners now? Let them come out and swear that they don’t have a hand. We are still together. If people are seeking the truth, we shall come to Maiduguri to tell them, even if we are not indigenes of Borno State."Meanwhile, Sheriff has told leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria that it was unfair to associate him with the sectarian crisis in the state, adding, “I will not condone the killings of people. The electorate voted me to lead them.”At a meeting with CAN, he said, “I do not associate based on religion. As a governor, you will not join hands with such a sect. No responsible leader or man would ignite any religious crisis; some of the pastors are my friends.”He sympathised with CAN on the burning of 20 churches and killing of three pastors, noting that since 2003, his administration had been battling with Boko Haram, which had been in Maiduguri for 14 years.
Read more…
