Curfew in Bauchi, North East Nigeria Over Religious Clash afp20090727614002 Abuja Hot fm in English 26 Jul 09

But the police Deputy Inspector General Operations, John Ahmadu, had earlier told the Nigerian Television Authority that Yusuf had been "killed by security forces in a shoot-out while trying to escape". A policeman reportedly said that Yusuf "pleaded for mercy and forgiveness before he was shot."

When journalists tried to probe further into the alleged killing of the sect leader while in custody, the state Commissioner of Police Christopher Dega, told journalists at a press conference that actually Yusuf was handed to them by the military, but "he could not make it because he sustained bullets wounds during a shootout."

In a related development, shortly after the killing of Muhammed Yusuf, his father-in-law, Alhaji Baba Fuu gave himself up to the police when he suddenly appeared at the state police command headquarters and declared: "I am Baba Fu’u, the father-in-law of Muhammed Yusuf.

According to police sources, he confessed to have been the sole arms importer to the sect members. He contributed both his land and houses for his son-in law to build his mosque and provided hostels for their increasing members. As at the time of filling this report it could not be confirmed whether the father-in-law was alive or had been killed.

Due to the enormity of the battle that took better part of concluding days of July, the Chief of Defense Staff, Air Vice-Marshall Paul Dike and the Inspector General of Police Mr. Ogbonna Onovo had to fly into Maiduguri to give a first-hand assessment of the situation.

The two top security chief were conducted round the town where they witnessed the destruction that took place within the five days of war between a blinking sect members and the government security forces. As at the time the CDS and the IGP visited the Boko Haram enclave, the entire place leveled by earth movers while remains of over 1000 burnt motorcycle and several cars belonging to the sect members were seen.

Meanwhile the state governor, Ali Modu Sheriff had hurriedly convened a meeting with all popular Ulamas (Islamic cleric) on the need to establish a high powered committee for the censoring o all Islamic preaching and crusades in the state. This is meant to avoid the future recurrence of the last week’s experience where a notorious religious sect, led by the 39 year-old Yusuf, wrecked havoc that claimed the lives of nearly 700 in the wake of the madness.

At the meeting that held in the multi-purpose hall of the government house, Sheriff who had on Friday July 31, 2009 met with all the district and village heads in the state and read a riot act to them stressing that all of them should go back to their respective domains and seek out any one suspected to be members of the illicit sect and hand them over to the police; and failure to do so, such district or village head stands to lose job if the police goes into their domain and arrest a confirmed member of the Boko Haram sect.

Also at the meeting with the Islamic clerics, the governor said that it was high time all stakeholders in the state sat down and brainstormed on the ways to curb the re-emergence of individuals like the late Muhammed Yusuf, "who had brought us pains, sufferings and destructions last week."

Sheriff said a bill for the establishment of the Preaching Censors Board is already on its way to the state assembly, hence he said that all the 27 council areas of the state must provide at least three renowned and knowledgeable Islamic clergies who will be part of the board.

Even though normalcy had returned to the city of Maiduguri and commercial activities had since picked up, with banks, hospitals and other government and private agencies opening their business offices, the fear of the likely regroup of the dislodged sect members, still trouble the minds of many in the state.

It is even more upsetting to many residents when some of the women groups and wives had threatened to pick up the fight from where their dead husbands left it. "This goes to show that this people are really dogmatic and they can still fight back a fierce retaliation most especially as they believe that if they die in this way they will go to paradise," said one Aliyu Baba, a school teacher in Maiduguri.

But top security officials maintained that the women were only fooling themselves and that most of the sect members actually depend on their dead leader Muhammed Yusuf and his second-in-command, Bukar Shekau, who were both killed in the fight.

"But with the destruction of every structure that represent their so-called spiritual headquarters located at Bayan Quarters area of Maiduguri, the sect members at large have no better preoccupation before them than to keep running and hiding until we catch up with them," the Police Public Relation Office, Isa Azare, said.

The state police commissioner, Christopher Dega, had in a press briefing, urged members of the Maiduguri metropolis to go about their normal business life as normalcy had been restored. He noted that members of the public should be conscious of their security and try to observe the ongoing curfew until when the security situation is fully guaranteed.

The killing of Mohammed Yusuf means the end of a paradigm in the Islamic sectional ideology. THE WEEK magazine has been able to look into his past from those who know him well. And it was said that he was a son of an Islamic scholar and was born somewhere in a remote village of Yunusufari before he moved to Potiskum where he started his divisive life as Tsangaya Quranic teacher.

His family later moved to Maiduguri where he at a point joined the Shiite Movement which he later abandoned. Those who knew him said he later became the Amir (spiritual leader) of Shahabul Islam a sect that tried to differentiate itself from the Izalatul Bidya Wa Iqamatul Sunna (IZALA) Movement.

Within the Shababul Islam sect, he was later asked to leave the popular Ndimi Mosque where he used to deliver sermons, for his negative attitude towards acquisition of western education. He them moved to Nguwan-Doki where he continued with his kind of preaching before he finally moved to where his present enclave which he developed to become a headquarters.

He was also said to have visited many parts of the United Arab Emirate and neighbouring countries like Chad, Cameroon and Niger. An on several occasions denied admission into the University of Maiduguri and the University of Medina for lack of prerequisite papers and background. Some said this formed part of his hatred for western education which he later transferred to become the philosophy of his sect the Boko Haram (western education is prohibited).

[Description of Source: Lagos TheWeek in English - independent weekly news magazine]

Nigerian Police Evict 3,500 Members of Islamic Sect in Niger State

AFP20090816583001 Lagos This Day Online in English 16 Aug 09

[Report by Aisha Wakaso: "3,500 Islamic Sect Members Evicted in Niger"]

Following the warning by the Niger State Government to the Federal Government of a base in Mokwa for Islamic sect, 3, 500 members of the sect most of whom are from neighbouring countries of Niger, Chad and Cameroon, among others, were yesterday evicted from the camp by the police. The women covered themselves with black veils, while the men were in white clothes.

It took over 1,500 combined team of armed policemen from the Niger State Command and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

THISDAY gathered that the policemen from the two commands invaded the area together with immigration officials acting on the directive from the Presidency.

The Presidency, it was also gathered, took the decision to avoid a similar problem with that of the religious crisis of the Boko Haram in some northern states which resulted into loss of lives of hundreds of Nigerians.

The combined team of Immigrations officers who were there to collate data and asertain the foreigners among them while the police searched and evacuated men, women and children from the place.

THISDAY also gathered tht the team of policemen commenced the operation at about 4 am with eight lorries. The fundamentalists were relocated to Government Technical College, Mokwa for their initial camping pending government's next line of action.

Speaking in an interview, the Commissioner of Police for the Niger State Command, Mr. Mike Zuokumor, described the raid as successful without any casualty recorded on both sides.

He disclosed that the immigration officers who had already commenced the screening of the members to determine those who are Nigerians would ensure that the illegal aliens among them are repatriated.

According to him, "We have received series of report about the activities of the sect from the neighbouing communities, the local government and the emirate. Most people have been expressing apprehension concerning the activities of the group and it is our duty to ensure law and order.

"Some people have said their family members are forcefully held by the sect and wives are forcefully exchanged and that the people act without recourse to constituted authority."

He disclosed that the police would conduct its investigations and charged the people to court if needs be.

He regretted what he described as poor medical healthcare of especially the children in the camp and high mortality rate particularly as according to him; the sect is against the immunisation against the five child killer diseases.

Zuokumor also disclosed that no weapon was found on them when a house to house search was conducted, but maintained that the police had to expedite action following complaints by members of the community in which the sect reside.

The leader of the sect, Amrul Bashir Abdullahi, while speaking in an interview with THISDAY at the camp, disclosed that he had been living in the area before the police invasion since the past 17 years.

He denied the allegations that the sect never believed in Western education or Western medicine.

[Description of Source: Lagos This Day Online in English -- Website of the independent daily; URL: http://www.thisdayonline.com]

Nigeria: Islamic Group Threatens To Attack Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu, Port Harcourt

AFP20090816583004 Lagos Daily Sun Online in English 16 Aug 09

[Report by Daniel Alabrah, Sola Balogun, Samuel Olatunji and Sunday Ani: "We'll Bomb Lagos, Ibadan  Boko Haram; Police Beef-Up Security; They'll Meet Their Waterloo  OPC; Don't Provoke Igbo  Ikedife"]

You wake up early in the morning in Lagos and head towards Victoria Island from the mainland, only to discover that the Third Mainland Bridge had been cut off by Islamic jihadists.

In Ibadan, also in the South West, the rampaging insurgents have struck, cordoning off the State Secretariat after the governor had sat down in his office.

The South East had equally been cut off from the rest of the country with the bombing of the Niger Bridge, and Aba Road and Diobu in Port Harcourt are in flames, sending jitters down the spines of government officials and the security agencies across Nigeria. Like before, there was warning by the sect members but no one took them serious until they struck.

This is the ugly scenario stalking the nation with the latest threat of the Boko Haram sect to inflict mortal injuries on the cities of Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu and Port Harcourt beginning from this month of August. Their targets - Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw - whom the sect described as infidels.

This time around, the nation might ignore the latest threat to its peril if the chilly scars of the 9/11 terror attacks are anything to go by. In an electronic mail statement to the media, the new leader of the group, Mallam Sanni Umaru, warned: "We have started a Jihad in Nigeria, which no force on earth can stop. The aim is to Islamise Nigeria and ensure the rule of the majority Moslems in the country. We will teach Nigeria a lesson, a very bitter one.

"From the month of August, we shall carry out series of bombings in Southern and Northern Nigeria cities, beginning with Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu and Port Harcourt. The bombings will not stop until Sharia is established and western civilisation wiped off Nigeria. We will not stop until these evil cities are turned to ashes."

The Bokom Haram bombshell is coming two weeks after the fundamentalists struck in four states in the North, namely Bauchi, Kano, Yobe and Borno, killing scores before their leader, Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf, an alleged financier of the group, Alhaji Buji Foi, and close to 1000 members were felled by the combined force of the army and police.

Already, the police authorities have placed their men on read alert and have beefed up security at strategic areas across the country.

In a telephone interview with Sunday Sun, Lagos police command spokesperson, Mr Frank Mba, said the command was not aware of any formal threat from the radical Islamic group but that they have put in place security measures to prevent the Borno kind of attack from happening in Lagos.

"I am not aware that such a formal notice was issued. However, no state is in isolation. Since the event in Borno occurred, the command has been putting security measures in place to prevent such attack. The first thing we did was to call meeting of religious and tribal leaders to prevent ripple effect.

"We have also deployed undercover operatives to sensitive areas. We have engaged what we call high visibility policing. That is a measure where police men are everywhere. The armoured vehicles, police cars, stop-and-search are part of the high visibility policing we are talking about.

"There is also a special team monitoring movement of people in and out of the state. I want to assure people that Lagos is safe and it will continue to be safe. Lagos is not a fertile ground for such activity," Mba said.

The leadership of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) reacted angrily to the threat with a stern warning to the religious fundamentalists to stay off Yorubaland or meet their waterloo. Both the OPC founder, Dr Frederick Fasehun, and the National Coordinator, Otunba Gani Adams, condemned the threat, insisting that the Yoruba would not fold their hands and watch Islamic fundamentalists cause mayhem on their land.

Adams, who berated the Islamic group for attempting to cause chaos in Nigeria, warned that they will meet their waterloo should they venture into Yorubaland.

"We are ready for them and we will match them force for force if that is the only thing they under stand."

Adams, in a telephone interview with Sunday Sun, revealed that the OPC had alerted all its units across the six Yoruba states immediately the police reportedly arrested some people in Abuja on their way to the Southwest to cause havoc.

According to him, "we have our men on alert already since the police arrested some of them in Abuja coming to Lagos. We are ready for them. They should not come and disrupt the harmony in Yorubaland. We have a secular society in place here and they won't come and disturb it. We have a plan in place that would effectively curb their advance anytime they decide to come to the South West."

The OPC founder was equally incensed over the report, warning that an attack on Yorubaland would be seen as provocation and be so treated.

Fasehun, who noted that the report was just an empty boast, however advised the security agencies not to take it lightly.

Likewise, the immediate past president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr Dozie Ikedife, has warned the federal government not to take the threat lightly.

Speaking in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents on Saturday, he warned that should the group come to Igboland it would be seen as extreme provocation, which would be resisted accordingly.

The Igbo leader advised the government not to take the threat as an empty one before the whole country is thrown into crisis, adding that Nigeria cannot afford any war again.

Ikedife asked the group to seek peaceful separation from the country if they don't want to be part of Nigeria instead of resorting to bombing and killing as it cannot be an answer to their grievances.

He doubted if the group actually represents the Islamic religion, stating that there are unseen hands supporting its activities and advised the federal government to ensure that such faceless individuals are unmasked.

"There is an Igbo adage which says that a little bird dancing by the road side has the drummer within. The federal government must find out these drummers," he stated.

[Description of Source: Lagos Daily Sun Online in English -- Website of the privately owned daily close to former Abia State Governor Orji Kalu; URL: http://www.sunnewsonline.com]

Nigeria: Muslim Scholar Condemns Activities of Islamic Sect

AFP20090816583010 Abuja Daily Trust Online in English 2300 GMT 15 Aug 09

[Report by Terkula Igidi: "Boko Haram is Embarrassment to Islam -Scholar"]

An Islamic scholar, Ustaz Hassan Idris has described the activities of Boko Haram as against the teachings of Islam and an embarrassment to the religion.

Speaking in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, Ustaz Idris said the Boko Haram group has dented the image of Islam. "we believe in the values of Islam and we will defend the values of Islam. But we will not tolerate people who exploit the ignorance of our people and try to cause mayhem."

He said the activities of the Boko Haram were unacceptable, in the 21st century when other nations are making scientific and technological breakthroughs to better the standard of living of their people, it is worrisome that a group would wake up and cause damage that could only bring Nigeria backwards.

Ustaz Idris explained that knowledge is power, saying that Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said "all Muslims should seek knowledge even if it would lead them to the city of siem which as we understand today is Beijing in China."

"Knowledge and education are the same, so for anybody to wake up today and regard western education as a sin, we believe that is the highest level of ignorance and we will not accept that," the Islamic Scholar stated.

He called on the Federal Government and North East Governors to continue to put in more efforts to do away with this criminal act of Boko Haram completely in the North East in particular, and the country in general, so as to ensure peaceful co-existence among our people.

Ustaz Idris then commended the Sultan of Sokoto and President General Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affair (NSCIA) Sultan Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar III for coming out to condemn the activities of Boko Haram, saying that "Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affair firmly and categorically dissociated Islam and Muslims from this group because what they were preaching is against the teachings of Islam."

He also commended the Governor of Borno State, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff for announcing that a Preaching Board would be set up with a view to regulating the activities of preachers in the state so as to ensure that only learned scholars were allowed to preach.

[Description of Source: Abuja Daily Trust Online in English -- Website of the independent pro-North daily; URL: http://www.news.dailytrust.com/]

Nigeria: Police Evacuate 4,000 Islamic Sect Members in Raid in Niger State

AFP20090816683002 Paris AFP (World Service) in English 1546 GMT 16 Aug 09

KANO, Aug 16, 2009 (AFP) - Police raided an Islamic sect's compound in central Nigeria, evacuating some 4,000 members, weeks after an uprising by another sect left 800 dead in five northern states, officials said Sunday.

"Our action of evacuating members of the sect from Darul Islam is necessary to forestall any religious crisis in the (central) state" of Niger, state police commissioer Mike Zuokumor told AFP.

He said around 1,500 police from Abuja carried out the operation on the sect in a large compound in Mokwa, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Minna, the Niger state capital, on Saturday.

He said the action followed complaints by the state government that the existence and activities of the group could cause a religious crisis, and fears of possible deadly violence like the uprising last month by the self-styled Taliban fundamentalist group Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

"They are being kept in a government technical college so as to question them about their activities," Zuokumor said.

He added that members of the sect did not resist the authorities and no weapons were found on them. "Our operation was peaceful," he said.

He said the suspects could face prosecution if their activities were found to be detrimental to religious peace in the state.

But Darul Islam's leader Malam Bashiru Abdullahi Sulaiman said in a telephone interview with AFP that the sect was founded 16 years ago to "enable us to practice our faith as purely as possible and not to mingle with ordinary people."

The state government had invited the police to take action after it became worried about the activities of the group, spokesman Bala Abdukadir told AFP.

"We don't want a repeat of the Boko Haram episode in Niger state," he said.

The Boko Haram violence which erupted on July 26 was crushed after days of clashes between the sect and security forces.

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has ordered an investigation into the violence and the killing in police custody of the sect's leader Mohammed Yusuf.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay and rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on the government to investigate the security forces' role in the violence.

Nigeria's 140 million population is divided between Christians in the south, and Muslims mainly in the north, where 12 of the 36 states adopted Islamic sharia law in 2000.

[Description of Source: Paris AFP (World Service) in English -- world news service of the independent French news agency Agence France Presse]

Nigeria: Police Detain 4,000 Islamic Sect Members in Niger State

FEA20090817896903 - OSC Feature - AFP (World Service) 1546 GMT 16 Aug 09

KANO, Aug 16, 2009 (AFP) -- Police raided an Islamic sect's compound in central Nigeria, evacuating some 4,000 members, weeks after an uprising by another sect left 800 dead in five northern states, officials said Sunday.

"Our action of evacuating members of the sect from Darul Islam is necessary to forestall any religious crisis in the (central) state" of Niger, state police commissioer Mike Zuokumor told AFP.

He said around 1,500 police from Abuja carried out the operation on the sect in a large compound in Mokwa, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Minna, the Niger state capital, on Saturday.

He said the action followed complaints by the state government that the existence and activities of the group could cause a religious crisis, and fears of possible deadly violence like the uprising last month by the self-styled Taliban fundamentalist group Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

"They are being kept in a government technical college so as to question them about their activities," Zuokumor said.

He added that members of the sect did not resist the authorities and no weapons were found on them. "Our operation was peaceful," he said.

He said the suspects could face prosecution if their activities were found to be detrimental to religious peace in the state.

But Darul Islam's leader Malam Bashiru Abdullahi Sulaiman said in a telephone interview with AFP that the sect was founded 16 years ago to "enable us to practice our faith as purely as possible and not to mingle with ordinary people."

The state government had invited the police to take action after it became worried about the activities of the group, spokesman Bala Abdukadir told AFP.

"We don't want a repeat of the Boko Haram episode in Niger state," he said.

The Boko Haram violence which erupted on July 26 was crushed after days of clashes between the sect and security forces.