Ex Boko Haram member: IBB is the major sponsor of Boko Haram

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Read Time:23 Minute, 55 Second

In an interview published on Transformation Watch, an ex member of the Boko Haram sect, fingers former president of Nigeria, Ibrahim Babangida as a key sponsor of the organisation. This might cause a major debate of true or false, that’s why we’ve put it in the rumour section. However, it’s a properly published content from a media outfit. See details below.

Full Interview

Question: Who are you and where are you from?

Answer: My name is Sheik Sani Haliru. I am from Niger Republic, but my mother is from Bornu State of Nigeria and I grew up in Wulari, Maiduguri, (Northern Nigeria) where I was trained.

Q: Trained as what and under whose tutelage?

A: I was trained as an Almajiri, after four years, at the age of 14, I was sent to Kano City, Kano State where I was trained in the Sheik Abubakar Gummi School of Arabic studies.

Q: So you know Sheik Abubakar Gummi?

A: Yes, and I also know his children and obeyed all the teachings he laid down before he died.

Q: So who tutored you and who is your mentor?

A: Sheik Abubakar Gummi tutored me. My mentor was Osama bin Laden, and until my conversion from Islam to the Christian faith, my dreams and aspirations in life was to do more than Osama bin Laden did before he died on Sunday, May 1, 2011.

Q: You said that your mentor was Osama bin Laden. Is he still your mentor?

A: I am now a changed person. The Sheik Sani Haliru is now a new creature, old things have passed away because I now have Jesus Christ that I hated and persecuted for 44 years.

Q: Tell me about your past and how many countries of the World you have been to?

A: I cannot tell all about my past because it will take several days to tell my story and about my conversion experience to Christianity. I have been to eight countries.

Q: Can you please name them?

A: I have been to Sudan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Egypt and of course to my own country Niger Republic.

Q: Where did you receive your training and as what?

A: I received my training in Libya and Pakistan as an Attack Strategist. I was trained along side with some highly placed Nigerians and other foreign Nationals who were marked (he showed me the proof of his mark with a sign) in the form of a sword in the hand to fight and kill for Allah.

Q: Can you give me some of the names of your colleagues with whom you received training in Libya and Pakistan?

A: They are scattered all over the country and we were not too many then.

Q: Just mention but a few names.

A: Ali Baba Nur, Asari Dokubo, Jasper Akinbo, Mohammed Yusuf, Salisu Maigari, Danlami Abubakar, Cletus Okar, Ali Qaqa, Maigari Haliru and Asabe Dantala to mention but a few.

Q: Which of the Asari’s do you mean?

A: The Niger Delta war king. He was a year ahead of me in Benghazi training camp in Libya.

Q: Who financed your training in Libya and Pakistan?

A: You will not believe me and only God will judge the Chief sponsor of terrorism in Nigeria whose name I will not mention because he is so powerful and even the president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, is so much afraid of the man.

Q: If you really know the Christ in you, why are you afraid to tell me the name of the man who sponsored you and the date or approximate period he sponsored you.

A: I am not afraid because he knows me and he cannot deny it if he sees me face to face.

Q: Then tell me, who is this powerful man?

A: The man is no other person than the man they call IBB now as I am talking to you, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida has more than 600 men and women Jihadists who are under his pay role. They are scattered all over the Country and he (IBB) can use them to destroy Nigeria.

Q: Did you say six hundred?

A: Yes 600 + IBB’s agents of destruction are in the Nigeria Army (NA), Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Navy, Air Force, Oil and Gas sectors, even in the finance home such as in top level positions of CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) and other banks. You find them in politics, in the Senate, National Assembly, in the media both print and electronic and even in Aso Rock, Abuja (Nigeria’s capital).

Q: How do you mean by this statement “and even in the finance…”?

A: Yes, I mean every word I say; even the Islamic bank champion was planted by IBB to help in Islamizing Nigeria.

Q: So how can you describe IBB?

A: IBB is a “green snake” in green grass. He is the main problem of Nigeria along with members of the Cabal.

Q: Have you forwarded any of these evidence(s) to Aso Rock or to SSS (State Security Services)?

A: I attempted to do so a few weeks ago and I was arrested and detained for two days because IBB’S men are so many in SSS (State Security Services) as well. After I was released by the grace of God, they (the Police) warned me never to blow up the polity or provoke violence and I should keep my so-called-born-again with me or else I will go to jail.

Q: So you were a key member and a registered jihadist hardliner.

A: Yes, I was.

Q: Under what group?

A: I was a Boko Haramist. But Boko Haram is just a cover name to give it a name. I have my identity as a founding member of the dreaded jama’aful Ahlul sunna wal Liddawati wal Jihad, aka Boko Haram.

Q: Apart from IBB, who are the other top sponsors of terrorism in this country?

A: They are many, but IBB is the major financier. He introduced the suicide bombing that started when he killed Dele Giwa. I have the names of six traditional rulers and seven present & ex-Governors as well as several top military and security officers who are co-sponsoring the so called Boko Haram. That apart, I have documented evidences to prove that General Mohammadu Buhari, Alhaji Abubaka Atiku and other top politicians and traditional rulers are some of the people behind Boko Haram. Very soon, nemesis will catch up with them.

Q: What if I use my influence to guarantee you safety, can you brief the press to expose IBB (General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida) with all these documents that I am seeing with you right now.

A: Only God can guarantee my safety. He did so on that fateful day when the SSS and police wanted to secretly kill me because of what I unveiled. I would have been a dead man by now if not for a man of God who came as an “Angel” to quietly free me. Right now, I am wanted dead or alive by IBB and his agents of destruction in high places. The SSS are busy hunting for me up & down and arresting and torturing innocent people because of me.

Q: What if I connect you to a man of God by the name of Brother Mike Ejiofor, who is a lawyer, a professional negotiator and a mediator who was the Director of SSS until October 2010?

A: I only wish to be connected to God.

Q: So how can you describe this country?

A: Nigeria is sifting under an Islamic barbaric bomb (IBB). Only God can rescue this nation because 75% of Christians are prayer less. Why? Because they are in their own comfort zone. They do not know what the Christians in Northern Nigeria are passing through and they ignorantly are thinking that the Allah of the Muslims is the same as the God of Christians in the Holy Bible who says: “Thou shalt not kill”.

Q: What does the Qur’an say about Islam being referred to as a religion of peace by numerous Muslim scholars?

A: Let me tell you in a very clear language that Islam is not a religion of peace, but it is of violence, of killers and fighters as already stated in their so called “Holy” Qur’an which I ignorantly followed all these years when I was spiritually blinded as a Muslim.

Q: Can you prove these statements from the Qur’an?

A: [Sani Haliru, who is now known as Solomon Haliru (Paul Haliru’s brother)] brought out two copies of the original Qur’an in the Arabic & English translation. He gave me one, and told me to open the book to Surah Al- baqarah chapter 2 vs 216. It says, “Holy fighting is ordained (prescribed) for all muslims, whether they like it or not, as far as it is good and approved by Allah through his prophet Mohammed.”

Q: Where is it in the Qur’an that killing is also permitted by Allah?

A: Look at Surah Al-baqarah chapter 2 vs 191 “And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. An Al-Fitnah is worse than killing. And fight not with them at Al-Masjid-Al-Haram (the sanctuary at Makkah), unless they (first) fight you there. But if they attack you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.” Muslims are told to kill and fight in the cause of Allah.

Q: Does it mean that IBB and all these Muslim traditional rulers and Governors that are sponsoring Boko Haram to kill Christians and burn our churches in the North are not aware of the passage in the Qur’an that says there must not be compulsion in Islam as Mohammadu Buhari asserted in a widely publicized interview on Saturday, the 21st of April, 2011?

A: I have worked so closely with Mohammadu Buahri for five years, and I can prove it that General Buhari is the most notable outspoken jihadist hardliner in Nigeria who is also strategically sponsoring Boko Haram.

Q: General Buhari told a group of pressmen in April 2011 that there is no compulsion in Islam and it is a religion of peace. He quoted Surah Al-Baqarah Chapter 2:225. What can you say to that?

A: What I can say to that is General Buhari, like all other true Muslims, is a hypocrite who is shying away from the fact.

Q: How do you mean by saying that most Muslim millionaires and highly placed Muslims are “pretenders and shying away from the fact”?

A: What I mean is that they (Muslims-both rich and poor) are told to use their position of wealth (or otherwise) to promote Islam or else they will face destruction from Allah.

Q: Where can you find this in the Qu’ran?

A: Open Surah Al-Baqarah Chapter 2:195, it is written here that you must use your wealth to champion Jihad of all kinds or else destruction is waiting for such a person on the last day.

“And spend in the Cause of Allah (i.e. Jihad of all kinds) and do not throw yourselves into destruction (by not spending your wealth in the Cause of Allah), and do good. Truly, Allah loves Al-Muhsinun (the good-doers).”

Q: Have you ever been detained or arrested?

A: Nobody could arrest me until the year 2009 soon after my immediate boss Mohammed Yusuf was killed. About 23 of us were arrested in one of our hideouts in Bauchi. But when Governor Isa Yagiuda heard about it, he immediately arranged for me to be free. Even before his official broadcast in 2010 that he was using his position as the executive Governor of Bauchi State (Northern Nigeria) to free 28 prisoners from Bauchi Central Prison, I was already a free man along with several of my colleagues.

Q: Now can you tell me some of the horrible crimes that you committed and how you got born again and became converted.

A: Old things have passed away and I don’t want to talk about the past, because like Apostle Paul said, we need to press forward in Christ Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Q: Just mention a few to assist some of us who are making efforts to unravel the mystery of the menace called Boko Haram which you have renounced.

A: I took part in the Kaduna riot of 1992 and in several northern states of Nigeria, but the state I operated more from was Bornu (northern Nigeria) where I was the State Commander/Chief Strategist.

Q: So as Chief Attack Strategist, what crimes have or did you commit before you renounced the deadly sect?

A: In the early months of May 1986, I was among the 36 Jihadist hardliners, who went on a rampage to attack Christian students of the University of Sokoto (Sokoto State in northern Nigeria). In that same week, the Federal Government of Nigeria under the brutal leadership of IBB mobilized us and provided some military vans and Army uniforms which our men used and started killing innocent and defenseless Christians all over the Northern states. I and the son of the Emir of Kano, who is now a Christian by name Rev. Paul Ado Bayero, were among the Muslim fanatics who razed down the sculpture of Jesus at the University of Ibadan (Oyo State in western Nigeria).

The following year, March 5, 1987 to be very precise, the “Evil Genius” General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida secretly armed us through one of his close aids by the name of Captain Hassan Abubakar (now a Pastor with a fast growing church in Lagos). We went to go and kill some targeted Christians including Rev. Nuhu Kure (Throne room founder) after the destruction we committed at the College of Education in Kafanchan, Kaduna State (North Central Nigeria). And of recent, I was the leader of the team of soldiers of Allah that destroyed Church buildings and properties in Bornu State (northern Nigeria).

Q: Can you name some of the buildings and Churches you and your Boko Haramists destroyed?

A: There are many, but our main targets which we succeeded in destroying included: Goodnews & ECWA Church, Damboa Road, Maiduguri E.Y.N.L.C.C. Wulari, National Evangelical Mission Inc. Divisional Headquarters Wulari, Elijah Apostolic Christ Church, Oke Ayo Celestial Church of Christ, Deeper Life Bible Church, the Lord’s Chosen and six others in Railway Area and all over Wulari in Maiduguri, Borno State. Other church buildings we destroyed and looted include the Aposotic Church, COCIN Church, Evangelical Church/Mission Headquarters, Anglican Church, Baptist Church/Mission, Redeemed Christian Church of God, El-Shaddai Parish, Watchman Charismatic and several others.

Q: Where were the security officers when you were destroying all these church buildings and killing Christians?

A: Since 1985 when General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) started using us to persecute Christians, the Nigerian Army has been an extension or shall I say an arm of the Muslims agenda to Islamize Nigeria. Wherever they go to attack Christians, the Muslims in the top military positions give the cover by providing the logistics. Since the day of Babangida (1985) Christians suffer violence. This is the time that we must attack them and take what belongs to us by force.

Q: You don’t seem to like IBB and you talk so much of his evil deeds. Are you the only one he used or is there more revelation we can investigate or ascertain further?

A: Babangida is the most wicked and heartless man I have ever seen or worked with. He used many Muslim fanatics (Most of who are now Christians) to commit a lot of atrocities. For example, he used Alhaji Sannusi Dasuki (now Solomon Dasuki), Alhaji Ahmed Ado Bayero (now Rev. Paul Ado Bayero), Alhaji Mohammed Usman (now Evangelist Blessed Usman), Alhaji Sani Jegga (now Isaac Jegga) to attack the following men of God: Late Papa Idahosa, Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, Rev. Uma Ukpai, Rev. O. Ezekiel and other men of God. He used some of the people whose names mentioned above to burn down several million copies of the Holy Bible. Along with the late MKO Abiola, they both sponsored the sinking of three million copies of the Holy Bible into the high sea.

Q: With all these revelations, can’t IBB be arrested and charged to court?

A: Who will arrest him? Is it Goodluck or who? Even when we provided the proofs to them that IBB killed Dele Giwa and that he sponsored the burning and looting of the Jos main market (Terminus) and also planted the seed of the present crises in Plateau State in 1991, they refused to arrest him because he is very cunning in his evil ways. He leaves no trace of his evil deeds, but nemesis will soon catch up with him because the sardonic spirit in him will soon expire.

Q: In a simple language, how can you describe IBB?

A: Ibrahim Babangida is a wicked and heartless man. As a military officer he was very brutal and as a politician he is very selfish and tricky. He better repent and confess his numerous sins and wickedness before it will be too late.

Q: Can you prove to the readers that fighting and killing in the name of Allah is justified in the Holy Qur’an?

A: I can site more than 28 passages from the Holy Qur’an where fighting and killing is justified as approved in the cause and for the sake of Allah. Please turn to the Qur’an (it goes from the back to the front) and see the book Surah At-Taubah Chapter 9:29 “Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad), and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” In this passage, every true Muslim(s) is specifically instructed to fight against four (4) groups of people especially the Jews and Christians.

Q: So what is the meaning of Jizyah and how was the name coined?

A: From the footnote as you can see in the Qur’an, Jizyah is a tax levied against the people of the scriptures (i.e. the Christians) who are under the Islamic government. Jizyah was coined out after the Jaiz bank that the Muslims are wanting to use to take over the financial world via Islamic Banking.

Q: Are you saying indirectly that Islam is not a religion of peace as most Muslims will want us to believe?

A: I am saying it directly not indirectly that Islam is a religion of violence It is a religion of force. More than 95% of Nigerian journalists and people of the world are ignorant of what the Qur’an teaches and/or says about Islam and violence.

Q: How do you mean?

A: Open the Qur’an to Surah Muhammad Chapter 47:4. In this very passage, Muslims are commanded by Allah to kill and smite the neck of anyone who does not accept the teaching of Islam, and according to the satanic verses they (Muslims) would be helping Allah by so doing.

I quote exactly as it is written in the Muslims Holy Qur’an: “So, when you meet (in fight-Jihad in Allah’s Cause) those who disbelieve, smite (their) necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly (on them, i.e. take them as captives). Thereafter (is the time) either for generosity (i.e. free from them without ransom), or ransom (according to what benefits Islam), until the war lays down its burden. Thus [you are ordered by Allah to continue in carrying out Jihad against the disbelievers till they embrace Islam and are saved from the punishment in the Hell-fire or at least come under your protection], but if it had been Allah’s Will, He Himself could certainly have punished them (without you). But (He lets you fight) in order to test some of you with others. But those who are killed in the Way of Allah, He will never let their deeds be lost.”

Q: So is that why all Muslims are indirectly supporting Boko Haram?

A: Yes, Boko Haram is just a name coined by satan to Islamize the world. That is why every true Muslim is directly and indirectly supporting Boko Haram.

Q: Can you explain further?

A: In Surah Al-Baqarah 2:195, the wealthy Muslims and all those in high position of authority such as IBB, Buhari, Atiku, Isa Yaguda, etc. are told to use their wealth and any position they find themselves in to promote Islam and the cause of jihad of all kinds or else they will face destruction from Allah.

Q: Is that how the suicide bombers come into the picture?

A: Yes,

Q: My readers will like to know from the Qur’an if Islam is the zenith of wickedness as you earlier said.

A: In the Qur’an Allah commanded thus “(Remember) when your Lord revealed to the angels, Verily, I am with you, so keep firm those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes.” (See the Qur’an of Surah Al-Anfal 8:12)

Q: So you did accordingly?

A: Yes! Satan used Buhari and Tunde Bakare, the false prophet, to smite the necks and chop off the fingers and toes of several Christians in Zaira, Maiduguri, Bauchi and several other places.

Q: Which passages say that the Christians are enemies of the Muslims? Some ignorant Christian leaders and pressmen are of the opinion that both Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

A: Christians and journalists (about 95%) are very ignorant. Let them search the original Qur’an (The Noble Qur’an). The more the Muslim leaders try to block the original Qur’an from circulation, the more the lie spreads that we’re serving the same God. That is why the Lord says “I will build my church; and the gates of (hades) hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18

Q: Mention another satanic verse that makes every true Muslim(s) to hate Christians.

A: In addition to the several passages and mentioned earlier, please take a look at Surah An-Nisa 4:101 and I quote “For the Unbelievers are unto you open enemies.”

Q: What is the solution to this problem of the Boko Haram menace?

A: The problem is not Boko Haram. The problem is the Spirit of Islam which must be crushed by the prayer of the Saints. Was it not through prayer that people like Rev. Paul Ado Bayero, Bishop K. K. Degaya, Apostle Johnson Suleman and hundreds of others got saved? Was it not through prayer that I got saved on my way to assassinate both Rev. Samuel Dasuki and Evangelist Blessed Usman when they were in their training camp in a crusade/ministration to their converts? I tell you from my experience this past few months as a Christian, many Christians are not united. In the north Christians are more united and sincere, but in the south & west, Christians are in comfort zones and if they don’t wake up, they will be surprised of what Muslims will do to them.

Q: What can Muslims do in Warri, Port Harcourt and other southern and western zones?

A: Look let me tell you one top secret. Before I repented, an average of 2,500 Muslim fanatics came to Delta State every month, 2,000 to the Eastern states and 2,000 to Cross River State and 2,500 to other zones. All of these Muslim fanatics were sent in preparation of the holy war (Jihad).

Q: Where are they camped?

A: In various Mosques and Islamic training schools which they use as training camps at odd hours (—for security reasons, the author/interviewer have decided not to publish the other details of this answer in print).

Q: What advice do you have for Christians in the comfort zones?

A: Pray for our Christian brethren in the north. Secondly, stop giving your ladies to Muslims. Thirdly, do no sell your land to a Muslim any longer. Fourth, do not employ them as security men. Fifth, beware of what they do with your finger nails and hair. Finally, watch them carefully and be very prayerful because Nigeria is sitting on an Islamic barbaric bomb (IBB) and the Muslims are prepared to fight you in your backyard.

Q: Any advice for the president?

A: They are desperate to get him/his family by kidnap/killing them, not only by Spiritual means, but through some well trained security men who he think can never disappoint him. About six suicide bombers are in the presidency and one of them is a student from NDA-Nigerian Defence Academy (other details I am keeping for security reasons).

Q: Do you know anything about bombing?

A: In answer to this question, I shall give you a top secret document which is supposed to be for only committed Muslims which I smuggled out and gave to some Christian leaders in the south.

Q: But tell me a little of how they got the knowledge to manufacture a bomb? Who sponsored your people to do these wicked acts?

A: We were sponsored by the man they call IBB and some top Muslims within and outside the country. We also worked hand in hand with Al Qaeda. As far back as 12th of June, 2011 when I got converted to Christianity, I gave several documents to Police and SSS. They arrested and detained me. But the Holy Spirit released me the same day that they wanted to kill me secretly by poisoning.

Q: What secrets did you give them?

A: I told them that the Muslims are using trailer and vehicles in military colour and are escorted by northern soldiers to smuggle weapons to various mosques and Islamic training schools in Aba, Onitsha, Port Harcourt, Owerri, Calabar, Sapele, Warri, Ebonyi and Enugu States, etc.

Q: What about the bomb manufacturers?

A: I told them that the Traditional Rulers in the northern part of Nigeria and many state governors in the far north are sponsoring Boko Haram. I told them that I was paid a deposit of 5 million Naira to go and bomb NDA in the month of August 2011 when they will be planning the graduation that just took place where I would have driven straight to the Commander’s Office with a covering letter from a Garrison Officer commander whose name I gave to the police and who is a close relative to IBB.

Q: Did you give the name of the bomb location where the training is going on?

A: Yes, I gave them and told them where they were training 65 new Islamic Youths in two bomb factories in Bauchi, Bornu and Niger states and also the bomb factory at Hanyan Nassarawa Iku, Niger State.

Q: Any more revelation?

A: Yes, I gave them many bomb factories even in the southern and eastern states and seven in Kaduna State, Plateau State and Abuja. It was in the Niger State bomb factory that we manufactured the improvised explosive devices that was used to operate in Abuja on October 1, 2010.

Q: Did the police take immediate action?

A: The news leaked to IBB immediately and he immediately instructed his ground soldiers to relocate the bombs. The Police and SSS were afraid to search some of the mosques because the presidency must be aware that by so doing, the country Will explode into a religious war between Christians and Muslims. That is why I said Nigeria is sitting on Islamic time bomb or shall I say Islamic Barbaric Bomb

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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War Monger vile McCain calls for U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria

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Read Time:2 Minute, 7 Second

Saying “the time has come for a new policy” in Syria, veteran Republican Senator John McCain called Monday for U.S.-led airstrikes on President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in an effort to protect civilians from a bloody year-long crackdown by the regime.

“The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes on Assad’s forces,” McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a speech on the Senate floor.

“To be clear: This will require the United States to suppress enemy air defense in at least part of the country,” said McCain, who has repeatedly called in recent weeks and months for a stepped-up U.S. effort to protect Syrian civilians.

Assad has waged a year-long, deadly crackdown on opposition to his regime, drawing fierce criticism from Washington and other world powers, though Moscow and Beijing blocked a UN Security Council resolution aimed at halting the bloodshed.

The White House has sharply criticized Russia and China, but has resisted calls to arm the Syrian opposition as premature.

McCain said “the ultimate goal of airstrikes” would be “to establish and defend safe havens in Syria” where Assad’s outgunned opponents “can organize and plan their political and military activities” and points for the delivery of humanitarian and military aid “including weapons and ammunition, body armor and other personal protective equipment, tactical intelligence, secure communications equipment, food and water, and medical supplies.

 

“After a year of bloodshed, the crisis in Syria has reached a decisive moment,” McCain said. “Increasingly, the question for U.S. policy is not whether foreign forces will intervene militarily in Syria. We can be confident that Syria’s neighbors will do so eventually, if they have not already.”

“Some kind of intervention will happen, with us or without us. So the real question for U.S. policy is whether we will participate in this next phase of the conflict in Syria, and thereby increase our ability to shape an outcome that is beneficial to the Syrian people, and to us. I believe we must,” the Arizona Republican said.

“However, it is not clear that the present policy can succeed. If Assad manages to cling to power — or even if he manages to sustain his slaughter for months to come, with all of the human and geopolitical costs that entails — it would be a strategic and moral defeat for the United States. We cannot, we must not, allow this to happen,” McCain said.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Boko Haram: Igbo arrive in Enugu in batches with little or no property

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Read Time:1 Minute, 39 Second

Over 150 Igbo citizens arrived Enugu from Maiduguiru, Borno State, on Thursday, three days after the same number of persons returned home due to the upsurge of Boko Haram activities in northern Nigeria.

The returnees, who arrived in batches, arrived Ninth Mile Corner, Enugu town, in free luxury buses provided by Igboville, an Igbo social network group.

The Igboville group comprises Igbo professionals in Nigeria and the Diaspora. The group provided the buses to be used in evacuating Igbos who are stranded in the North to Enugu.

Some of the returnees, who spoke to reporters, claimed they relocated to the bush for many days until they got hint of the free buses.

Mrs. Patricia Agballakwe, an indigene of Nnewi in Anambra State, said, “We came back because of Boko Haram. My family members and I were hiding in the bush until we heard that free buses had been provided for us and we quickly came out and returned home. As you can see, I am a happy woman now because I’m out of the Boko Haram area.”

Founder of Igboville, Mr. Emeka Maduewesi, implored the returnees to quickly resettle in the South-East zone while the government sorts out the security situation.

Maduewesi, who spoke through Mrs. Nelo Fina, called on politicians and well-meaning Nigerians to assist in evacuating Ndigbo still left in the North from danger spots.

While reaffirming the group’s commitment to one Nigeria, Maduewesi urged the government to do more to secure the lives and property of Ndigbo and Nigerians in general.

He expressed optimism that Nigeria was not about to disintegrate, saying, “The country would soon get over the turbulent times.”

He called on the South-East governors to ensure that school children among the returnees were absorbed into different institutions in the zone.

The Igboville founder said, “The evacuation of Igbo people would continue until every Igbo that is willing to leave is enabled to leave.”

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Boko Haram Kill Police DPO, Soldiers And 10 Others In Bauchi

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Read Time:53 Second

Members of a suspected Boko Haram sect this morning killed about 13 people in various attacks targeted at police, soldiers, a hotel and a bank in Bauchi State.

A source told SaharaReporters that a Divisional Police Officer (DPO) was among those killed in Tafawa Balewa LGA along with two lance corporals of the Nigerian Army killed at an army checkpoint in Katagun and about 10 unarmed civilians.

 

Some of the victims met their death in a police station and military checkpoint in Bununu District of Tafawa Balewa local government. The state police command through its commissioner, Ikechukwu Aduba, confirmed the incident.

He said about five suspects have been captured by the combined team of army and police men who engaged the attackers in an exchange of gunfire. The commissioner stated that the security team recovered a number of assembled bombs as well as other weapons. Two churches one of them an ECWA church-were attacked in Fadaman Mada and Railway Quarters in Bauchi Township early Sunday morning, but there was no loss of lives or injuries.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Boko Haram: Using religion as weapon of terror

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Read Time:9 Minute, 4 Second

Sulaimon Olanrewaju writes that the original intention of members of Al-Sunnah wal Jamma (popularly known as Boko Haram group) was to pattern their lives after the teaching of Prophet Muhammed by avoiding the corruptive influence of the larger society but this ideal has since given way to bloodthirstiness.

B OKO Haram is dreaded. It is so feared that its mention will cause severe palpitation in some and probably cardiac seizure in others. At the mention of the name in Borno, Bauchi, Yobe, Adamawa, Gombe, Taraba and some other states in the North, people, including rulers, will run from pillar to post, ducking as they go. Even at the Police Force Headquarters in Abuja, the name gives respected police officers the jitters and causes them to scamper for safety, leaving their guns and other weapons behind. Boko Haram generates a trepidation of unimaginable proportion in many people, and it is not for nothing. It is widely believed that the group attacks without provocation and at any time of the day. Boko Haram has been credited with bombing, explosion, killing, maiming and massive destruction. The group has been responsible for the killing of thousands in various parts of the North. The Islamic sect has become a horror not just to ordinary citizens, especially Christians and non-Muslims, who have no weapon to shield themselves from its onslaught, but even also to officers of the state who are provided all round protection because when Boko Haram decides to hit, it hardly misses its targets. 

On Thursday, 16 June, 2011, the Inspector General of the Police (IGP), Hafiz Ringim, escaped death by the whiskers when a suicide bomber on a mission of the sect decided to hit the police headquarters. But 15 others were not as lucky as the IGP as they were consumed by the explosion that erupted as a result of the attack.

Earlier, on Friday, 28, January, 2011, Mallam Modu Fannami Gubio, then gubernatorial candidate on the platform of All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), and six other persons, including the brother of the immediate past governor of Borno State, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, were killed by Boko Haram members. The deceased had just finished performing their Friday Juma’at prayer when the killers struck. The list of Boko Haram’s attacks is as long as the distance between Lagos and Maiduguri but the result is the same, anywhere the sect strikes, it leaves blood and tears in its wake.  

But the current operation of the group defers greatly from what it started out with in 2002 when it was established by Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri, Borno State capital, as Al-Sunnah wal Jamma, meaning  followers of Prophet Muhammad’s teachings.  According to Professor Abdulmumin Sa’ad, a Muslim scholar who teaches Sociology at the University of Maiduguri, at the outset, the aim of the group was to separate itself from the rot in the society. Members of the group, many of who were from wealthy families, believed that the Nigerian society was excessively corrupt with unpardonable immoral practices at every facet of life and for them not to be contaminated by the corruption in the country, they had to quarantine themselves and live apart from the rest of the society.

Sa’ad, who claimed he taught some of the members of the sect, said, “The idea was that there is a lot of sin in the larger society and their parents had amassed a lot of ill-gotten wealth. They believed there was widespread immorality, and so they thought the best thing for them was to remove themselves from the larger society and camp elsewhere, where they could concentrate on their religion, meditate, reach out and begin to form a fellowship.”

Their focus was to be acceptable to Allah such that they would remain candidates of Aljanah, the paradise.

The group believed that it would be difficult for the rest of the society to wrongly influence it if it would strictly abide by Sharia, the Islamic law, so the members swore to live by the dictates of the Islamic jurispudence.

So, Ustaz Yusuf embarked on an aggressive conversion programme. He was going about sharing his belief about the endemic corruption in the society and the need for genuine Muslims to shun corrupt lifestyle so that they would not incur the wrath of Allah. His targets were young people and he tried his utmost to win converts to his group. The message soon began to make sense to a number of young people and the group swelled daily and grew to a point that in 2004, it decided to move to Kanamma in Yobe State, where it set up a base known as ‘Afghanistan’. There, the group shielded itself from the corruptive influence of the larger society. It had ample time for spiritual exercises without any interference from the larger society, with all the members believing that their actions were pleasing and acceptable to Allah. 

It was also at this point that the change that is now evident in the group began to manifest. While in its ‘Afghanistan’, the group traced the rot in the larger society to the influence of Western education and culture and thought that the best way to save the society from the corruption was to stop Western education and its influence by ensuring the implementation of Sharia. This is where the name by which the group is popularly known came into being. Boko is a Hausa word that means Western or non-Islamic education and Haram is an Arabic word that means sin or abomination. So, the war that the group is waging against the society is based on the society’s romance with Western education and culture.

Yususf, in an interview with the BBC in 2009, claimed that his group’s vehement opposition to Western education was premised on the fact that the education could lead Muslims to disbelieve the oneness of God.

He said, “There are prominent Islamic preachers who have seen and understood that the present Western-style education is mixed with issues that run contrary to our beliefs in Islam.

“Like rain, we believe it is a creation of God, rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain as Western education would want us to believe. 

“Like saying the world is a sphere; it runs contrary to the teaching of Allah. If anything runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it. We also reject the theory of Darwinism.”

Muhammed Yusuf, Boko Haram leader killed in 2009

Based on this belief, the group resolved not just to remain in its enclave and hold on to its convinction. It decided that it had a duty to share the light it had received with the rest of the society. So, it moved back to Maiduguri, where it was able to build a mosque, Ibn Thaimiyya Islamic Center, which became its operational headquarters and from where it began its agitation for the adoption of Sharia law in all the states of the North as a strategy for reducing the influence of Western education and culture.
The group was miffed that though some northern states had already embraced the Sharia law, they were just paying lip service to it, observing it perfunctorily, essentially to win elections. However, the group was interested in the full implementation of the law and not just its use as a weapon to whip up religious sentiments. It was gathered that Boko Haram’s failure to persuade the leadership of the North to adopt Sharia as it would want led to its decision to start amassing weapons with the view to forcefully entrench Sharia in the northern part of the country because it saw the promulgation of the Islamic jurispudence in all states of the North as a jihad.

The government got wind of the group amassing ammunition in 2004 and the police moved in, attacking members of the sect.
It was a long fought battle, which the police claimed they won at the end. But from all indications the police awarded themselves an unjust mark because Boko Haram might have been over-powered at the time but it was not wiped out. The sect soon regrouped. Since the onslaught of the police on the group in 2004, it has ceaselessly attacked policemen and police stations leaving deaths on its trail. It was the attack that forced the police and the military to again launch a massive onslaught on the group in 2009 in Maiduguri, killing about 700 of the members and destroying its mosque. The leader of the group, Mohammed Yusuf, who had earlier escaped with about 300 of his members, was arrested by soldiers and handed over to the police. However, according to the police, Yusuf was killed while trying to escape from custody.

Just as a retreat is impossible for a maiden who has lost her innocence and a young lion who just tastes blood craves for more, the success recorded in its attack on the police and the citizenry has driven the sect to do more to the extent that when the Federal Government indicated an interest in a dialogue with the group, it gave a seemingly impossible conditions for dialogue.

According to a statement by the group, before it would engage the FG in any dialogue, Sharia should be implemented in the North, where Muslims form the majority. Then, all its members kept in detention in Borno and some other parts of the North should be immediately released.

Boko Haram also asked that former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff , Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai El-Kanemi be prosecuted according to Sharia for allowing security operatives to kill Yusuf.

Members of the group also called for the prosecution of the former commissioner of police Mr. Christopher Dega and the Director of State Security Service (SSS), who served during that period of the crisis for killing some of their members before the outbreak of the crisis.

The recalcitrant posture of the group forced the police to declare a war on the group with the IGP announcing that Boko Haram would soon become history although the group had retorted that it was not afraid of the police or the combination of Nigeria Police with security agencies of the Western world. It made good its boast by beating the security network of the police headquarters to cause a bomb explosion in the place last week.

How the riddle of Boko Haram will be solved is still in the belly of the future but Nigerians, who now sleep with one eye open because of the fear of the group, cannot wait to see the IGP make good his own promise that the Boko Haram nightmare will soon be history.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Arsonists burn Christians’ shops in Yobe •Residents flee Damaturu, Potiskum •Security beefed up in Abuja

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Read Time:2 Minute, 33 Second

 

IN Potiskum, Yobe State, residents fled after arsonists burnt 30 Christian-owned shops as well as the home of a Christian leader on Sunday night in what appeared to be the

continuation of religious violence that peaked with the bombing of churches on Christmas Day in Niger State.

“I can’t stay here any longer,” a man waiting at a bus stop in Potiskum told Reuters. “It’s peaceful today, but it’s no guarantee that in the next hours it will remain the same,” the 31-year-old said. “People have been killed and it could be me next.”

Also, hundreds of residents in two restive northern Nigerian cities have fled their homes, fearing more violence after a series of bombs swept the country, killing 40 people.

Damaturu, which was struck by two blasts on Sunday, killing three, has been at the centre of clashes between Islamists and authorities in recent days, with people seen at bus and taxi stations planning to leave the town.

Police in Madala, Jos and Damaturu – the three cities targeted in Sunday’s bombings – ramped up their investigations on Monday.

Marilyn Ogar, a spokesperson for the State Security Service (SSS) would not confirm the number of arrests made in connection with the incidents, citing the sensitivity of the ongoing investigations. But she said that police were “arresting as many people as possible” for questioning.

Asked about the status of the police investigation into the Madala bombing, the most severe of the attacks where at least 35 people were killed, police spokesman Richard Oguche, said police had not made any arrests but added that the investigation confirmed that a car bomb caused the explosion in front of St. Theresa’s church.

Following a security meeting in Abuja on the Sunday bombings in parts of the country, security has been beefed up in all the state capitals while the police have been placed on red alert.

The security meeting which wa held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja was attended by top security chiefs and the meeting reviewed the Christmas Day bombings with a view to tackling the problem.

Also, the headquarters of the SSS was also condoned off alongside other strategic buildings like the Federal Secretariat and the National Assembly.

With the new security arrangement in the city, vehicular movement was affected due to various checkpoints introduced by combined security operatives, as vehicles were used to block the road and only personnel of the service were allowed to drive through some restricted areas.

Investigations also revealed that checkpoints have become very tough and those manning them are said to have been directed to shoot any vehicle which attempted to force its way through the checkpoints.

Heavy security presence was also noticed at various relaxation areas within the city, including the famous Abuja Millennium Park, which has continued to record massive turnout of fun seekers.

At the last count, six police patrol vehicles loaded with mobile policemen were seen surrounding the Millennium Park.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Christmas Day Bombings: Muslim leaders disown Boko Haram – Sultan: Attack on Churches unIslamic

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Read Time:3 Minute, 42 Second

 

Top Muslim leaders and Islamic scholars across the country yesterday rose in condemnation of the Christmas Day bombings in parts of the North, saying such attacks were un-Islamic and that the Boko Haram sect which claimed to have executed them was not doing so on behalf of Muslims.

The powerful Muslim groups NSCIA and JNI, headed by Sultan of Sokoto Sa’ad Abubakar, said the attacks were dastardly and reprehensible, and urged that its perpetrators be punished.

Also, leader of the Dariqa sect Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi condemned the attacks yesterday, saying that Islam prohibits attack on women, children and people taking shelter in churches.

Churches were targeted at Madalla, Niger State; Jos, Plateau State; and Damaturu, Yobe State, during Christmas, killing dozens of people. The Boko Haram sect claimed responsibility for the bombings, prompting fears of sectarian violence.

But the Muslim leaders who spoke yesterday said Boko Haram was not acting on behalf of Muslims and that its action were not backed by religious strictures.

In a statement yesterday, national headquarters of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam and the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic affairs, headed by the Sultan, said those behind the bombings must be punished to serve as deterrent.

The statement, signed by JNI secretary-general Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, “condemned in strong terms the series of bomb blasts and violence in the country especially those of Christmas Day bomb blasts in Madalla near Abuja, Damaturu and Jos, which resulted in the unfortunate loss of lives of innocent people and properties. It is sad and disheartening.

“Human life is sacred and therefore must be respected, preserved and protected at all times by all.

“Security agencies must fish out the perpetrators of these dastardly acts and make them face wrath of the law, regardless of their status, so as to serve as deterrent to others and also must take proactive measures to nip in the bud the reoccurrence of such dastardly acts before they happen in order to create sense of security and safety in the citizenry.

“While commiserating with those who lost their loved ones and properties in the unfortunate incidents, we call on all citizens to take security as responsibility of all, cooperate and assist security agencies in the discharge of their duties.”

Shortly after issuing the statement yesterday, the JNI scribe spoke to Daily Trust, explaining that Islam does not encourage violence.

“The perpetrators of the Christmas Day blasts in all parts of the country have done their evil acts not on behalf of the Nigerian Muslims or Islam. Boko Haram that claimed responsibility has done so on their own not on behalf of the Nigerian Muslims,” Aliyu said. “We are suspecting so many things relating to these blasts, therefore the security agents should be up and doing in clearing our doubts,” he added.

In a separate interview with journalists in Kaduna, the JNI scribe described the bombings as satanic, un-Islamic and ungodly, adding that no true Muslim would like to be associated with such act. “Islam means peace and our Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW) died preaching peaceful co-existence among various tribes and religions. No any meaningful development would take place in our country without peace and security,” Aliyu said.

He cited several verses of the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith, which categorically prohibit and condemned any action that would lead to loss of lives.

Also yesterday, a renowned Islamic scholar and leader of the Dariqa sect, Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, expressed dismay over the bombing of religious places.

“Even at war front, leaders of the warring religions normally canvass for peace through dialogue but not through killings of innocent souls or burning of places of worship or properties,” he said.

Sheikh Dahiru said even when two sides engage in a religious war, women and children as well as people taking shelter in churches are untouchable as enshrined in Islam.

He blamed lack of punishment for culprits, lack of good leadership and injustice by leaders as being responsible for the rising spate of bombings in the country.

Sheikh Dahiru urged Nigerians to pray for the salvation of the country, and for peace and stability to reign.

Other senior Islamic scholars who spoke yesterday on the Christmas Day bombings are Sheikh Muhammad Isa, Sheikh Usman Saif and Ummah Abdul. They said the attacks were unjustifiable and condemnable.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Boko Haram Attacks: Adeboye, Oritsejafor, Oyedepo spit fire

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Read Time:6 Minute, 45 Second

 

*Okonkwo, Uma Ukpai, others also; urge Christians to be ready

*It’s impossible to police all Nigeria- Azazi

BY SAM EYOBOKA & DANIEL IDONOR

LAGOS – Christian leaders led by the National President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, yesterday reviewed Christmas day bomb attacks by Boko Haram sect that killed more than 40 worshippers as they trooped out of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madalla, near Abuja and declared that enough is enough, vowing that Christians would henceforth fight to defend themselves.

In a statement that chronicled several attacks and killings of Christians and destruction of their places of worship, the Christian leaders said: “We have hitherto exercised restraint in our public statements on these matters. However, we cannot continue to do so indefinitely, and are determined that in the year 2012, if these unprovoked attacks continue, and Christians remain unprotected by the security agencies, then we will have no choice but to defend our lives and property and take our own steps to ensure our safety and security”.

The statement was signed by CAN president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor; General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor E.A. Adeboye; Bishop Mike Okonkwo of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission; Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel; Rev Felix Omobude, Evangelist Uma Ukpai, Rev.(Mrs) Mercy Ezekiel and Pastor Wale Adefarasin.

Also yesterday, the Sultan of Sokoto and spiritual leader of all the Muslims in Nigeria, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, after over two hours  meeting with President Jonathan, decalred:  “There is no conflict between Christians and Muslims, between Islam and Christianity. It is a conflict between evil people and good people and the good people are more than the evil doers. The good people must come together to defeat the evil ones .”

The Christian leaders in their statement yesterday said, “Nigerians awoke on Christmas morning to the news that Boko Haram had struck again, this time they had bombed St Theresa’s Catholic church in Madalla, near Abuja with the loss of up to 40 lives, including children. As the day progressed reports that four other bombs targeting Christians had exploded in Jos and Yobe State, casualty figures were not yet available at the time of writing.

“We are deeply concerned that Boko Haram sect members and their apologists continue to wage war against Christians, in furtherance of their Islamisation agenda, especially Christians in the North Eastern states where Boko Haram members first unleashed their terror.

The terrorist group in their media ranting claim that they unleashed violence on innocent Nigerians in reprisal for the killing of their leader, Yussuf. It was in fact Yussuf that orchestrated and inspired the killing of no fewer that 800 persons, mostly Christians, when it unleashed its first major act of unprovoked sectarian violence in Maiduguri in July 2009.

“We note with dismay that public condemnation of the atrocities committed by Boko Haram have come mainly from members of the Christian community. We believe that when Muslim clerics, political leaders and leaders of thought from Northern Nigeria publicly condemn and denounce the activities of Boko Haram it will go a long way to quelling this threat to our future peaceful coexistence. “

Apart from the ransacking and wanton destruction of churches and personal belongings of numerous Christians, three Pastors including Rev. George Orji, who was beheaded by Yussuf, were brutally massacred. Pastor Orji’s widow and children were relocated and settled by the Christian leadership in view of Boko Haram’s continued hostility in Maiduguri.

A recent example of their persisting terror is to be found in the early morning attack of December 21 st, 2011 in Maiduguri, Bornu State. On that occasion, their members walked into the home of Pastor Peter Wakai, and murdered both himself and his son in cold blood.

“This was after his church had closed down because of the tension that prevails in the city. At the time of this release the road into Putiskom, Yobe State was blocked by Boko Haram to facilitate them wage their war on innocent citizens of the town. On November 27th about eight Churches were torched and four people reportedly killed by what were benignly and erroneously described as irate Islamic youths.

No mosque was razed; no Muslim was killed”.

Nigerian security forces, including the Police Force have also suffered at the hands of these terrorists as they have also been targeted and many have lost their lives to attacks by these terrorists; we strongly decry this and commiserate with their families”.

It is difficult to police all spots – Azazi

Also speaking with newsmen at the Villa, The National Security Adviser, NSA, Gen. Andrew Azazi who attended the meeting admitted that it was absolutely difficult to man every point of the country when there are security problems.

Azazi while assuring Nigerians that the security operatives were working to ensure they are on top of the situation, regretted that it was difficult to police all trouble spots in Nigeria.

Asked why it was difficult to check the recurring incidents along the Suleja-Zuba axis, he replied, “It is absolutely difficult to man every point of the country when there are security problems. Like I have said before, there is need for security awareness. There is need for public participation so that there must be cooperation between security and the society for us to make progress”.

On possible reprisal by the Christians over the Christmas bombings, the NSA said, “We can’t have a situation where we think that one bad turn deserves another. We are Nigerians and like we always say, I don’t see any major conflict between the Christian community and the Muslim community. You will find a situation where, certain individuals for whatever reasons are causing these problems. Have we thought of what their ultimate intentions are? Why will somebody go on to bomb Christians on a Christmas Day? Look at the ultimate intentions. Do they want to really raise temper elsewhere? I think the Christian leaders, CAN, are meeting tomorrow (today) to emphasise to the Christians that we must live together as a nation. Retaliation is not the answer because if you retaliate, at what point will it end? Nigeria must survive as a nation, that is the key thing”.

It’s inhuman, barbaric —Oritsejafor

Denouncing the bomb attacks earlier, Pastor Oritsejafor said, “this is a barbaric and most uncivilized action of human beings in a civilized world. Even animals have respect for each other. It is inhuman! It is inhumane! It is barbaric! It is satanic!”

He wondered why certain characters are sponsoring these acts of violence on fellow human beings “and go home without any feeling of guilt. I am not talking of people who are used to carry out the dastardly acts but those who sponsor them. So these people go home, eat and probably have children who they play with in their homes.”

Let us not deceive ourselves, as good as religion is, it can be a terrible thing because it is only religion that can give a man the conviction to do this kind of thing. It is incredible. Christmas is a day when over 80 million Nigerians join billions of fellow Christians across the globe to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, wouldn’t you just respect that?

“I don’t think anybody who cannot respect such a sacred date will have any respect for human life. It is totally barbaric and unacceptable. I am short of words to describe how I feel.

According to him, Nigeria must brace up to face the truth that there is a grand design to Islamise the nation, and that is why Christian leaders would soon meet to address the issue frontally once and for all, directing doubting Thomases to ancient history to find out how Egypt, Libya and most of the North African nations became Islamic countries.

 

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Boko Haram: Nigeria’s Terrorist Insurgency Evolves

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Read Time:12 Minute, 18 Second

Before 2011, Boko Haram was a little understood, dangerous but parochial Islamic sect believed to be in decline after a purge by Nigerian security forces in 2009. Now, with the year drawing to a close, it is clear that Boko Haram, which remains little understood, has evolved into Nigeria’s most serious security threat, one which shows no sign of abating in spite of the repeated government line that it is solving the problem.

Boko Haram has been blamed for 100 deaths last month alone and is thought to be behind 361 killings this year, a figure predicted to increase by the year’s end. In May it launched a series of attacks on the day of Goodluck Jonathan’s inauguration which stoked the endemic fear of sectarian violence splitting Nigeria “ the inauguration was a sour moment for many northern Muslims aggrieved at a perceived breaching of the PDP zoning pact and the electoral loss of the widely respected Muhammadu Buhari, who claimed the government rigged the presidential election. It then grabbed national news headlines once again with an attack on the Nigerian police headquarters in Abuja in June, before demonstrating heightened ambition with the bombing of the UN building in Abuja, its first international target.

In line with Boko Haram’s surge in activity, the Nigerian government is finally taking the sect seriously, while US attention has also been drawn. “Security” featured prominently in the recently announced government budget; a former Nigerian president “ Olusegun Obasanjo “ attempted to open dialogue with the sect; a presidential committee has investigated it; a sect spokesman has been jailed; a ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) senator is standing trial for disclosing the phone numbers of prominent politicians and public officers who were later threatened and providing logistics to Boko Haram; and a US Congressional report is recommending diplomatic engagement, military and intelligence support for Nigeria, and the classification of Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation on the basis that the group is an emerging threat to the US homeland.
Boko Haram: the origins

Boko Haram’s name “ the book [Western education] is prohibited “ is a local moniker derived from the group’s abhorrence of Western education: former leader Mohammed Yusuf said education spoils the belief in one God. The sect “ full name Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (“People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”) “ seeks to create an Islamic state governed by Sharia law in Nigeria by, seemingly, whatever means it has at its disposal and at whatever human cost it deems necessary.

The sect is thought by some to have its roots in the Sahaba group, which Mohammed Yusuf came to lead in the late 1990s before reorienting the group as Boko Haram. Yusuf was a favourite student of prominent Nigerian Islamic scholar Sheikh Jafar Mahmud Adam. It has been reported that the two fell out over Yusuf’s extremist positions, with Boko Haram, then known by some as the Yusufiyya sect, moving from Kano State to Yusuf’s hometown of Maidaguri, in Borno State, in 2004. Jafar was murdered in 2007. Kano clerics have alleged that Yusuf loyalists, who reportedly interrupted Jafar’s sermons after their falling out, were behind the murder.
The early rise and fall

Most of what is known about Boko Haram comes from its bloody emergence in 2009. The sect was thought to be behind attacks in Yobe State in 2004, but the deaths of some 700 people in Bauchi, Maiduguri and towns in nearby Kano and Yobe states, in a series of coordinated attacks on police stations, military barracks and churches over five days in 2009 catapulted it into the national spotlight. The response of the state was fast and brutal. On July 29, police stormed Boko Haram’s base in Maiduguri. Days later, Mohammed Yusuf was dead. At first, police claimed he had died in a shoot-out. Then that he had died while trying to escape. Now, with policemen on trial for his murder “ widely suspected by journalists at the time “ it seems clearer than ever that Yusuf, along with his father, senior sect member Alhaji Buji Foi and a group of young Boko Haram foot soldiers, were probably summarily executed by police.

Had warnings about the sect been heeded, things could have been different. A local imam claimed that the government failed to listen to and act on advice: “A lot of imams tried to draw the attention of the government ¦ 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.” There were also allegations that the reluctance to monitor and tackle leading militants was due to connections with powerful families linked to government. “People believe the government didn’t want to crack down on these people because their parents would get angry,” said one journalist working in the area. Alhaji Buji Foi was a former Borno State commissioner for religious affairs, while there was much speculation that other sponsors included religious leaders and businessmen.

After the purging of the sect in 2009, many thought the group would dissipate. Government spokesman Sunday Dare argued he did not foresee a swelling in the group’s ranks. Academic Patrick Wilmot claimed the group only need to be monitored and did not need to be taken seriously because it is seen as crazy by mainstream Muslims. However, Nigerian Islamic scholar Hussein Zakaria warned it was only a matter of time until a new leader would emerge to replace the martyred Yusuf.
Finding Boko Haram

There is little of real substance known about Boko Haram – a government committee reported to have been created to begin dialogue with Boko Haram was actually established as a fact-finding team.

What is known is that Boko Haram is evolving, both in its ideology and the scope and scale of its attacks. Its targeting of Abuja, especially the UN, shows a new level of coordination, expertise with explosives “ semtex or a similar military-grade explosive was used in Abuja, leading to theories of links with other terrorist groups “ and, critically, a new choice of international target which the sect claims is the forum of all the global evil.

Also indicative of Boko Haram’s change in tack is its posting of video messages, which conform to an al-Qaeda, international jihadi style, and a new online presence – a tactic taken to a new level by al-Shabaab this month with its launch on Twitter. In the aftermath of the UN embassy bombing, Agence France Presse obtained a video in which Mohammed Abul Barra, a 27-year-old from Maiduguri, explains his reason for driving an explosive-laden car into the UN. Another video from this year indicates that the sect’s leader is Abubakar bin Muhammad Shekau, thought to be the former deputy of Yusuf. While claiming to defend our religion and be persecuted by the state, Shekau rejects claims of an attack on a beer parlour being targeted at random drinkers. You people should know that we do not kill those who drink alcohol, he is reported to say. It is mere propaganda that we attacked a beer parlour. We had heard that it was purely soldiers who gathered there to drink, and we confirmed it, that was why we went there and killed them.

It also seems that there may have been a split in Boko Haram, although this is denied on the sect’s website. In July, the Yusufiya Islamic Movement, which claims to have been founded by Mohammed Yusuf and, as with Boko Haram, likely draws a lineage from the Yusufiyya sect, distributed leaflets in Maiduguri distancing itself from Boko Haram. It is thought that the split comes from Shekau’s more extreme ideology and tactics “ the move from targeting individuals in northern Nigeria to targeting the UN and the posting of video messages would support such a notion. We are concerned that some people with evil motives have infiltrated our genuine struggle with a false Holy War that is outright un-Islamic, the leaflet said. We call [on] this evil group to desist, failing which we shall have no option than to expose and hunt them.
Historical threads

Key to understanding Boko Haram is understanding its forebears. Reactionary attempts to threaten the secularism constitutionally enshrined in the post-colonial Nigerian state are not new, while during the colonial era a revolutionary Mahdism which received little elite support but attracted radical clerics, disgruntled peasants and fugitive slaves sought unsuccessfully to overthrow the British colonial regime which controlled the Sokoto Caliphate founded after the jihad of Usman Dan Fodio. With stark resonance to today, northern Muslim elites made a pact with the British colonialists that they would rule indirectly in return for British education not being imposed on the protectorate.

The Maitatsine uprisings of the early 1980s, inspired by Cameroonian dissident preacher Muhammadu Marwa, catalysed by massive socio-economic inequality and, following on from constitutional debates in 1977 which polarised the country, were the first incidence of Islamic fundamentalist agitation against the secular state. At around the same time, two other Islamic fundamentalist groups emerged, Jama’atu Izalatil Bidi’a Wa’iqamatic Sunna (Society of Removal of Innovation and Reestablishment of the Sunna), founded 1978 in Jos and known as Izala, and The Islamic Movement of Nigeria, a Shiite movement led by Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, funded by Iran and in which Yusuf was thought to be a major player – exactly how and when Yusuf was involved and how this related to his links with Sheikh Jafar is unclear.

Both groups have been associated with Boko Haram’s modern incarnation, a link both deny. In 2009, the Islamic Movement of Nigeria rebutted claims that El-Zakzaky was the founder of Boko Haram, arguing it could never be so against Western education when it owns 300 schools in Nigeria which teach a mixture of Islamic and Western education. Izala threatened legal action against publishers of pictures of its members labelled as Boko Haram footsoldiers.

What is clear is that the combination of constitutional debates in the 1970s, military rule under successive despots “ including the jailing of El-Zakzaky by Sani Abacha’s regime “ and entrenched poverty in the areas in northern Nigeria where such groups are active have all been grist to the fundamentalists’ mill. Many Islamists were not satisfied by the adoption of Sharia law in 12 northern states between 1999 and 2001, either believing it to be too watered down a form of Sharia or that the whole Nigerian state must abandon secularism for an Islamic state. And in the democratic, post-1999 Fourth Republic of Nigeria it has been perceived that an imported system of government based on Western values has resulted in ostensible corruption, poverty, unemployment and the continued suppression of true Islam. Perhaps symptomatic of the hypocrisy seen by such groups in putatively liberal democratic government is the state’s reaction to Boko Haram in 2009: Nigeria has admitted that it was overzealous, while its use of extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances and unlawful arrests escalated Muslims’ grievances against the state and were condemned by Amnesty International and the influential Sultan of Sokoto.
International attention

The linking of Boko Haram to non-Nigerian terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al-Shabaab ensures the sect will now be in the international spotlight.

At the end of November, a US House of Representatives subcommittee submitted a report on the sect, headlined Boko Haram: Emerging Threat to the US Homeland. The report found that the sect has quickly evolved, has the intent and may be developing capability to coordinate on a rhetorical and operational level with AQIM and al-Shabaab, that the the environment is ripe for recruitment and that the US should work with Nigeria to build counterterrorism and intelligence capability to effectively counter Boko Haram.

Nigeria has increased budgetary spending on security, ushered in a Terrorism (Prevention) Act, increased its military presence in northern states, tightened border controls with Cameroon, Chad and Niger, and is rumoured to have dispatched soldiers to the US for counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism and bomb disposal training in order to combat Boko Haram. However, there remains little progress in tackling the underlying conditions that catalyse Boko Haram’s appeal to impoverished, alienated, jobless northern Muslims who feel that the south of the country benefits at their expense: a life devoid of hope and economic opportunity, shaped by politicians reaping the huge economic dividends of office under an imported system intended to represent the voices of those who it seemingly expropriates. US Ambassador Terrence McCulley told Reuters in an interview about the sect that, It’s important for the government to look at how to redress these social-economic indicators in the north. Pick any one you want, whether it be health, literacy or access to clean water, the situation is really appalling. In reference to McCulley’s comments, the US report argues that such pressure should continue.
Combating and change

Indeed, the positioning of Boko Haram within a civilisational clash discourse and asserting that it represents an attack on Christianity are, at best, ill-informed. Boko Haram’s grievance is against the state and the secularism constitutionally enshrined in it. While the group is undoubtedly fundamentalist to its core and influenced by the rise of groups such as al-Qaeda “ early 1980s militancy was influenced by the Iranian revolution of 1979 “ of equal influence in fuelling the sect and its ability to recruit is the prevailing situation of economic dislocation which it has been argued exceeds that which sustained the Maitatsine riots of some 20 years ago.

The trial of PDP senator Ali Ndume and rumours that the sect received funding from brothers inside Nigeria only serves to illustrate the depth of the Boko Haram problem for the Jonathan government. And although calls for dialogue over all-out confrontation with a group prepared to fight to the death are being heeded, the re-orienting of Boko Haram under Shekau gives little cause for hope that dialogue will bear fruit “ after Obasanjo’s visit to Maidaguri, the representative of Yusuf’s family who hosted Obasanjo was killed.

Facing such a situation, it is evident that the government must focus on what is achievable and is indeed its responsibility: change the socio-economic injustice and political corruption that creates a supply line of willing Boko Haram adherents.

The emergence of Boko Haram signifies the maturation of long festering extremist impulses that run deep in the social reality of Northern Nigeria, argues analyst Chris Ngwodo. But the group itself is an effect and not a cause; it is a symptom of decades of failed government and elite delinquency finally ripening into social chaos.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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