Boko Haram cover-up: CAN indicts Sherif

From MODESTUS CHUKWULAKA, Abuja
Tuesday, August 4, 2009

•Photo: The Sun Publishing
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The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) on Monday accused Governor Ali Modu Sheriff of complicity in the emergence of the fundamentalist Islamist group that unleashed violence across five northern states last week. The association also alleged a cover-up by the Borno State Government in the manner the sect leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was hurriedly killed in police custody.

CAN alleged that Alhaji Buji Fai, Sheriff’s former commissioner for Religious Affairs, who was said to be a key financier of the Boko Haram sect was the link between the group and the administration, and wondered why the man was immediately taken to the Government House by security forces upon his arrest, only to be given a summary execution moments later.

“The real sponsors are in the Government House, Maiduguri ,” Elder Samuel Salifu, CAN’s national secretary, told journalists in Abuja. He said the motive behind the hurried killing of both Yusuf and Fai was to silence them before they could spill the beans on who the actual backers of the mayhem were.

“Why were the sect leader, Mohammed Yusuf and the ex-commissioner in Sheriff’s government, Alhaji Buji Fai, who was reported to have been taken to Government House silenced so quickly? We sense a cover-up by the Borno State Government,” Salifu said.

However, CAN said it was convinced that the last was yet to be heard of what it described as an unfolding drama, adding that the Sheriff administration had some explanations to make on the relationship between the government and the sect. “Let Sheriff tell us what is happening, it is important. There are so many things, and I am sure facts will begin to come out,” Salifu said.

Although CAN said the perpetrators of the mayhem in which hundreds of lives were lost should not have lived after wreaking untold havoc to innocent citizens, it said the motive behind their summary execution was suspect and was meant to prevent security agencies from getting to the roots of the matter.

Questioning why Boko Haram was allowed to establish its headquarters in the Borno State capital despite knowledge of its criminal motives, Salifu asked: “Who were the people in government who sheltered Boko Haram sect from being treated as criminal gang based on security reports? Is the Borno State Government under the leadership of Ali Modu Sheriff which has a penchant for pretentious religious public display telling the world that for two years - while the Boko Haram sect fertilized, watered, germinated, matured and started bearing fruits – that it was ignorant?”

Accusing the northern governors of complicity in the violence, which claimed the lives of three pastors in Maiduguri alone, the CAN general secretary said: “The North should be ashamed for the incessant outbreaks of religious violence year after year.”

Wondering why the group was left to operate undisturbed, even when it had been designated as security risk in the nation’s security circles, CAN said although the conflict was not between Christians and Muslims, the burning of churches and killing and maiming of Christians in Maiduguri evidenced what the sect had in store for Christians.

“We have no doubts in our minds that they would have perceived Christianity as a Western religion, which to them is also Haram (sin), which also must be eradicated,” the association said.
Indicting the security apparatus for treating the group with kid gloves, CAN noted that it only took the attack on law enforcement agencies for the government to act despite obvious and previous security reports on the threat that the sect posed to the nation as a whole.

“It appears that some people in government, who should have acted, paid deaf ears to this security threat purely out of complicity, incompetence or sympathy for the fundamental objectives of the Boko Haram sect…It was only when government felt its own security threatened that it acted,” Salifu said.
According to him, questions as to why the group was being preserved; how it acquired arms without security notice or government intervention; its sponsors; how it established a headquarters in Maiduguri for at least two years and became a law unto themselves, as well as how criminality has become synonymous with freedom of worship remain posers for the government.

“Christians are apprehensive that there is more to it than what is manifest about Boko Haram sect crisis. We need to be reassured that the federal and state governments, where the sect had taken root, were not part of the Boko Haram scheme,” said the CAN general secretary.

The implication of the various crises, CAN said, was that its members had lost confidence in the ability of government to provide security for lives and property, adding that if government continued the way it had been going, the association would have to give conditions for the co-existence of the various groups in the country.

Reacting to the CAN allegation, Borno State Director of Press, Usman Ciroma,, said it was preposterous and laughable that the tragedy, which befalls the state, could be trivialised in that manner.
Ciroma told Daily Sun that only on Sunday, the CAN leader in the state, Archbishop Pana Mani, wrote a letter to Governor Sheriff commending him over the way the Haram Boko crisis was handled.
The Borno State Government spokesman wondered whether allegations by CAN in Abuja were not just armchair criticism.

He queried: “Which politician would be suicidal to set a group to kill his own people?”
Ciroma urged the CAN leadership not to spark another round of crisis with its allegations, which according to the government spokesman, were not only preposterous but a cruel irony.

Nigerian military ignored warnings of violence

AP - 02 August 2009 19:42:31 By KATHARINE HOURELD
Photo By AP
Nigerian authorities ignored dozens of warnings about a violent Islamist sect until it attacked police stations and government buildings last week in a bloodbath that killed more than 700 people, Muslim clerics and an army official said.
More than 50 Muslim leaders repeatedly called Nigeria's police, local authorities and state security to urge them to take action against Boko Haram sect militants but their pleas were ignored, Imam Ibrahim Ahmed Abdullahi said.
He spoke Saturday to The Associated Press along with several other Muslim scholars in the battle-ravaged city of Maiduguri.
"A lot of imams tried to draw the attention of the government," Abdullahi said, drawing nods from other scholars sitting with him in a Maiduguri slum. "We used to call the government and security agents to say that these people must be stopped from what they are doing because it must bring a lot of trouble."
On July 26, militants from the sect attacked a police station in Bauchi state, triggering a wave of militant violence that spread to three other northern states. Nigerian authorities retaliated five days later by storming the group's sprawling Maiduguri headquarters, killing at least 100 people in the attack, half of them inside the sect's mosque.
About 700 people were killed in days of violence last week in Maiduguri alone, according to Col. Ben Ahanotu, the military official in charge of a local anti-crime operation. A relief official said thousands fled the city.
The death toll in other northern areas from the violence was not known.
The imams were not the only ones to raise the alarm. Ahanotu said he recommended several times action be taken against the group but received no orders to do so.
"I complained a lot of times," he said. "I was just waiting for orders."
The allegations of authorities dismissing the warnings raise serious questions about the West African nation's capacity to monitor and defend itself against terrorist groups.
International concern is growing over the ability of al-Qaida affiliates to cross the porous desert borders of north African countries such as Niger, which shares a border with Nigeria.
Abdullahi said he had known Boko Haram's charismatic leader Mohamed Yusuf for 14 years before the 39-year-old Yusuf was killed Thursday while in police custody. Several human rights groups have urged an investigation into the killing, the details of which remain murky.
Abdullahi and Yusuf were friends but had a falling out four years ago, the imam said, when Yusuf drifted toward extremism, began publicly rejecting Western education and urged followers to commit violen
Yusuf's sect, Boko Haram -- which means "Western education is sacrilege" -- rejects government education and seeks the imposition of strict Islamic Shariah law in Nigeria, a multi-religious country that is a major oil producer and Africa's most populous nation.
Yusuf, a Western-educated member of the country's elite, encouraged his followers to rid themselves of all material wealth while he was chauffeured around in a Mercedes.
Most sect members are young, unemployed and angry that the introduction of moderate Shariah law in 12 northern states 10 years ago has not halted the corruption that keeps most Nigerians in desperate poverty.
But Abdullahi said calls to violence were not the answer.
"I tried to show him and many of our Islamic scholars tried to show him that this is totally wrong," Abdullahi said, adding that he had asked friends to tape Yusuf's sermons to keep tabs on his violent rhetoric.
"They wanted to draw the attention of the world," he said. "Only Allah knows how many lives have been lost."
Abdullahi said he made his final call to security agencies two days before the sect attacked police stations with guns, bows and arrows and homemade bombs.
It was not clear why authorities didn't act sooner. Boko Haram was not discreet and Yusuf had been arrested several times before, most recently in 2008 after his followers attacked a police station.
Nine days ago, two sect members were making a homemade bomb when it went off prematurely, killing one and fatally wounding another.
Borno state's governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, said he wasn't sure he could bring enough evidence to court against the sect.
"It's not that people did not hear or that our government did not know that these followers of Mohamed Yusuf did exist. They did exist, but we don't know what they stand for," he said.
Ahanotu, the military official, blamed Nigeria's notoriously inefficient bureaucracy, while Abdullahi said the fact that many sons from prominent families had joined the sect may have helped slow the government response.
Recent government attention has focused on the country's cash lifeline: the oil-rich Niger Delta, plagued by a series of militant attacks. Little heed has been paid to the tens of millions living in the impoverished, mainly Muslim north.
"These attacks show the danger of that neglect," said Tom Cargill, an Africa analyst at London-based think-tank Chatham House.

Nigerian President Shuffle His Cabinet

When it comes to political accomplishments by political leaders in Nigeria, one can’t help but be cynical. Starting with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Alhaji Tafawa Belewa through General Gowon and Ironsi adventures to date; we have had governments that have produced political neophytes with developmental abortions or at best maladjusted programs. These untested self styled leaders come into power with barely developed plans or clear agenda.. At the end of their tenure (be they military or civilian) they feed the nation with fantastic plans that are either a smoke screen for self enrichment as was the case with the IBB government through MAMSA and DIFRRI or we are saddled with kindergarten politicians like Shagari and Umaru Dikko whose only ambition is a display of graft and ineptitude. These are square pegs in round holes or round rotten pegs in newly dug round holes! These are disastrous leaders waiting to happen. In other parts of the world, government look out for good programs in one part of the country and replicate such programs at a national level. In Nigeria such worthy emulation would amount to an anathema. The country is never known to replicate programs that worked well in other states within the country. The ‘school to land’ program under Gov. Fidelis Oyakhilome of River state in the mid 80’s comes to mind, such program could have been studied carefully by expert to determine short comings, if any... and perfected for the national stage, sad to say... that program died with the Oyakhilome tenure.
Each time a government, military and/or civilian ascend the throne, they waste time planning only for the next administration to come in and scrap all the plans and start afresh. Why do we, at this stage of our national life, still have to be planning for electricity, water supply and agriculture and other utilities? Can’t we have continuity? Why can’t Ajaokuta function even if it is the only thing that this government achieves? Why can’t we enjoy uninterrupted supply of light for six full months?


Visit some other Africa countries, like Ethiopia, Sudan, even Eritrea and Burundi, they enjoy 24/7/3651/4 days of power supply. Fresh water runs from taps. They have fantastic estates. Good roads and you hardly hear of restructuring of the ministries. The minimum wage is nothing compared to what people earn in Nigeria. The minimum wage in Ethiopia for instance is about $20 yet people are committed. Go to Accra Ghana and see what gives in terms of light and water.


Of course Abuja (as at the time I left in 1992) was something to be proud of, I heard it is better bow(I don’t know if it is still the same or better now, haven’t been there since then) but Nigeria is too big and too rich for us to be proud of just Abuja. Why is it so difficult for us to decentralise power and encourage healthy competition among the states? Why can’t we create more states if that is what it takes to move on? Recently, I was in Port Harcourt and I see another Lagos developing before our very eyes.
The latest announcement by the Yaradua to shake up his cabinet is meant to produce what? What are the excuses for the shake up? Why are they changing the old guard? What is the crime of the old guard? You don’t just change people from job to job without genuine reasons. It has a way of demoralising the workforce. What are these new appointees’ bringing on board that the old ones don’t have? If it is a matter of corruption then someone should go to jail! When Yar Adua was sworn in, we all said Obasanjo has betrayed the country/continent, and then Yara dua took some steps that gave the people hope. From the Diaspora we were excited about the information that Yara adua is a no nonsense austere selfless leader with a mission....we could look other fellow Africans in the face and say ‘our country has taken a turn for the better’, other African nationalties rejoiced with us; knowing that Nigeria’s development meant much for the whole of Africa especially W/Africa. Has the lustre of the office of the presidency robbed the tiger of its tigritude...? The news coming out of Nigeria these days only reflects our seemingly inherent atavistic tendencies! Holy God, what is it with us my people?
We are a unique people with Gods abundant blessing, so God did not create the polity called Nigeria... the Brits led by Lord Lugard and his girl friend did but haven’t we lived together long enough to start looking at this great nation as one indivisible entity with a single fate and a mission? I suspect that our constitution allows for this erratic restructuring of the ministries but I also think that the government should do it with discipline. The excuse for previous change has been lack of performance and bla bla bla; could it be the case this time around? Assuming it is, the question that begs for answer then would be, what was the pedigree of the outgoing ministers before they got the position and how long have they held their post. In what way has this administration proved that they learnt anything from the failure of past government? What are the fundamental shortcomings that warrant a new set of ministers? If we can find answers to these questions then the incoming ministers would know where to make amends.
It is understandable when leaders play politics to get into power (am not saying it is right) but it is pathetic to see people in power play politics with the fate of a nation.
God save Nigeria not from armed robberies and Delta area people. I pray that God should save us from our leaders!
Inaju