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

One of their leaders says he is opposed to the use of the Constitution to govern Nigeria. We seem to be paying the price for the failure of the Federal Government to deal decisively with the Sharia mischief under the Obasanjo administration. President Obasanjo had boasted then that the politics of Sharia would soon disappear. It hasn't. The fanatics argue that Western education should be forbidden because it is sinful, and that Western values are unacceptable. There is probably no point trying to respond to this obviously ignorant assertion. For as Moses Anegbode, the Assistant Inspector-General of police in charge of Zone 12, Bauchi pointed out, "They forbid anything western, yet their leader has an array of western materials in their position and their usage. Even the phone, SUVs, I wonder if they were made by him..."

Recurrent cases of violence in parts of Northern Nigeria and elsewhere in the country can be traced to the failure of governance. The Federal Government in the last few days has put up a rear-guard action to contain the insurgency which has spread across five states but the handling of the crisis is shoddy. The soldiers and the policemen involved in what is now known as Operation Flush II have been just as guilty as the insurgents. They have been shooting on sight rather indiscriminately, and since the fanatics do not wear a uniform there is no doubt that a lot of innocent persons have been caught in the crossfire. Human rights issues have been raised, most legitimately.

There has also been an excessive show of power. President Yar'Adua, before traveling out to Brazil had justified the state's response when he said that the security agencies are the ones who initiated the attack by launching "a pre-emptive" strike against the extremists after "tracking them for years". There is certainly nothing pre-emptive in their action. Where was the state when the insurgents set up a school where they trained and brainwashed young person to turn them against the state?

Members of the Boko Haram travelled across the Northern states to Maiduguri where they had planned to launch their holy war. Why didn't the security agencies pick this up, and nip it in the bud? The insurgents launched their attack in Maiduguri last Sunday, blocking the highway, and burning down houses, mosques and churches. They attacked the police headquarters, the police armoury, the Maiduguri prison, and burnt down police patrol vehicles. Within 24 hours, over 157 lives had been lost. It took a while before the Nigerian government responded. The police were caught unawares. The fanatics were so we ll organized they also struck in other cities: Kano and Bauchi; they represent a dangerous tendency that requires greater alertness on the part of the state. There was a failure of intelligence at play. And yet President Yar'Adua boasts as follows: "I want to assure that this administration will not tolerate any arms insurrection anywhere and in any part of the country. Anywhere any group of people begin to launch an insurrection and destruction against their fellow Nigerians they will be dealt with squarely and promptly."

This statement is probably directed, for effect, at the Niger Delta militants. It is possible to imagine that a similar "pre-emptive strike" may be on the cards in the Niger Delta after the expiration of the amnesty period. This may not be part of the President's calculation but were he to launch a fresh offensive in the Niger Delta next month, he could deflect charges of ethnic cleansing by claiming that he had ordered a similar operation in Northern Nigeria. A government that focuses on issues of governance and provides the leadership that the people need may not feel compelled to resort to such desperate tactics. In the North, Mohammed Yusuf and his band of fanatics, like El Zaky Zaky before them, have succeeded in further exposing the weakness of the Nigerian state and its institutions. For almost a week, the military and the police have been searching for the leader of the insurgency like a pin in a haystack. Pre-emptive strike indeed.

A big blow has been dealt again to the idea of national unity and cohesion. With incessant killings in Northern Nigeria, many Southerners in that part of the country have chosen to relocate elsewhere. Parents are reluctant to allow their children to participate in the NYSC [National Youth Service Corps] scheme in the North. The gradual transformation of parts of the North into natural centres of violence has obvious implications for investment and development in that region. The religious elite in the North must take responsibility for the conversion of a religion of peace into a platform for less ennobling pursuits. The educated class in the north is also culpable. Apart from a few statements from the Northern Governors Forum, the JNI, the Sokoto Council of Ulamah and Imams, and the Sultan, they have all been very cautious in their responses. They are afraid, obviously. But more voices should be raised in condemnation of this primitive assault on the Nigerian public space.

Where is President Yar'Adua in all of this? He is, at the time of this writing, in Brazil sipping tea and exchanging diplomatic hugs. Meanwhile, Nigeria burns. The state visit to Brazil is so important to him he could not even ask that it should be postponed to enable him attend to the emergency at home. The Brazilians would have understood. But our president is in Brazil looking for partners. I hope he would have convincing explanations for those would-be partners about the slaughter of innocent women and children in Maiduguri, Yobe, Kano and Taraba. And hopefully, he will not feel embarrassed when his hosts draw his attention to sordid footages of the mayhem. What image of Nigeria would he sell to his hosts? The right place for President Yar'Adua to be, as a wave of violence spreads across Northern Nigeria, and as many as 500 lives have reportedly been lost, is home, not abroad. Leadership is about responsibility and care. Providing a justification for his trip, President Yar'Adua had insisted that he was scheduled to travel to Brazil last year, but the trip was aborted. Now, he cannot afford not to honour a second invitation!

In addition to the crisis in the Northern states, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU has been on strike for a month. There is disquiet in the Niger Delta with the militants, the Governors and ordinary people protesting the proposed siting of a Petroleum University in Kaduna State. Before jetting off to Brazil, President Yar'Adua said the situation at home is "completely under control". I don't think so. Everything seems to be out of control around here.

When the President returns, there are specific issues that have gone out of control that he will need to address: the architects of the violence must be hunted down and made to face the full wrath of the law, the displaced persons in all the states must be assisted, and every effort should be made to begin a study of the aims and methods of religious fundamentalists and common criminals who seem to be thriving so much in part because the Nigerian state has failed to develop a memory bank for responding to their impunity.

[Description of Source: Lagos The Guardian Online in English -- Website of the widely read independent daily, aimed at up-market readership; URL: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/]

Nigeria: Sokoto State Police Intensify Security To Avert Insurgency by Fanatics

AFP20090731578017 Lagos This Day Online in English 31 Jul 09

[Report by Mohammed Aminu: "Surveillance Intensified in Sokoto To Avert Violence"]

Sokoto Police Command has intensified surveillance in all the 23 local government councils of the state to prevent insurgency by fanatics that invaded Borno state and some parts of North-east.

This was against the backdrop of arrest of five suspected members of the "Boko Haram' sect at Gagi area of Sokoto three days ago where the police discovered 20 sharp cutlasses, knives, uniforms, drugs and injections in their possession.

Speaking at a meeting of security operatives held at the Police Officers' Mess Sokoto yesterday, State Police Commissioner, Alhaji Abubakar Mohammed, said the command had adopted a pro-active measure to ensure that the insurgents do not invade the state.

According to him, the move became necessary in order to protect the lives and property of the citizens of the state as well as avert anarchy in the state.

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

Nigeria: Police Say Former Government Official Shot Dead in Unrest

AFP20090731309004 Paris AFP (World Service) in English 1619 GMT 31 Jul 09

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, July 31, 2009 (AFP) - Police Friday killed an ex-senior government official believed to have links with a radical Islamist sect that led a deadly uprising in northern Nigeria, sources said.

Alhaji Bujifai, 49, a former Borno state commissioner for religious affairs, was captured while in hiding in the city, brought to the police headquarters in Maiduguri, the capital, and shot dead, police sources said.

"Our men succeeded this morning in arresting... Bujifai at his hideout, following intelligence report," one of the sources said.

"He was brought to the police headquarters where he was shot dead just outside the gate," another police source said.

The self-styled "Taliban" group's leader Mohammed Yusuf was also gunned down the Thursday after his capture from a house in the sect's stronghold suburb in the city.

Bujifai, father of 13 children, resigned his post about two years ago from the state government, which he said was not sufficiently Islamic, and joined Yusuf's Boko Haram sect, they said.

But his neighbour, who demanded anonymity, denied that he was a member of the sect, adding that he was "innocent" and "unjustly killed."

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

Al-Jazirah Airs 'Exclusive' Footage of Body of Nigerian Boko Haram Leader

GMP20090731648007 Doha Al-Jazirah Satellite Channel Television in Arabic 1700 GMT 31 Jul 09

[Announcer-read report over video. For a copy of the video, contact GSG_GVP_VideoOps@rccb.osis.gov or the OSC Customer Center at (800) 205-8615. Selected video also available at OpenSource.gov.]

Al-Jazirah has obtained exclusive footage of what it seems to be the body of Muhammad Yusuf, leader of Boko Haram group in Nigeria. Yusuf appears handcuffed, and his body bears severe injuries and mutilations due to gunfire. Al-Jazirah points out that the mutilation of the body was blacked out owing to journalistic code of ethics.

Related Attachment

[Warning: very graphic image]

Click here to view the video on the OSC Video Server; or click here to view an attached WMV version.

[Description of Source: Doha Al-Jazirah Satellite Channel Television in Arabic -- Independent Television station financed by the Qatari Government]

Nigeria: Outrage Greets Boko Haram Leader's Death

AFP20090731606007 Abuja Punch in English 31 Jul 09 p 1

Outrage has greeted the 30 July killing of the leader of the Nigerian Taliban aka Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, at the headquarters of the Borno State Police Command, Maiduguri. This is just as a former Borno State Commissioner for Religious Affairs, Alhaji Buji Fai, and 22 other suspected members of the fundamentalist sect were reportedly killed by security agents on 31 July in Maiduguri.

Human Rights Watch researcher for Nigeria, Eric Guttschuss, described Yusuf’s killing as "a shocking example of the brazen contempt by the Nigerian police for the rule of law." Yusuf, 39, was seen by local journalists at the military barracks in Maiduguri after his capture. He had no visible injuries when he was taken from the Giwa military barracks to the police headquarters where he was killed after allegedly confessing to instigating the bloody violence in parts of northern Nigeria.

The Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili, has, however, promised that the federal government would investigate the circumstances of Yusuf’s death. Akunyili explained in Abuja on 31 July that the federal government was against extra-judicial killings, which the army and police have been accused of engaging in since the fighting broke out in Bauchi State on 26 July. Security agents picked over 200 bodies from the streets of the state capital as at 30 July, according to Aliyu Maikano, a senior Red Cross official.

Fai, believed to be a Boko Haram supporter, was among the 23 bloodied bodies found with what appeared to be fresh bullet wounds outside the police command on 31 July. Reuters said, "Our reporter counted 23 bloodied bodies with what appeared to be fresh bullet wounds outside the police command on 31 July, among them a former state commissioner for religious affairs believed to be a Boko Haram supporter, Alhaji Buji Fai." The report quoted the spokesman for the Borno State Police Command, Isa Azare, as saying, "Alhaji Buji Fai was killed along with other fleeing Boko Haram in an exchange of fire this morning along Benishek-Maiduguri road."

Security agents fought gun battles with followers of the radical Islamic sect for a sixth straight day on 31 July, after the group’s leader was shot dead while in police custody. Yusuf’s supporters, armed with machetes, knives, home-made hunting rifles and petrol bombs, have rioted in several states across the north in recent days, attacking churches, police stations, prisons, and government buildings. The violence broke out on 26 July when members of the group, loosely modeled after the Taliban in Afghanistan and whose name means "Western education is sinful," were arrested in Bauchi State on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station.

President Yar’Adua had said the group was procuring arms and learning to make bombs in order to impose its ideology on Nigerians by force. He then ordered the security forces to do everything necessary to contain the sect. Around a dozen soldiers, police officers, and prison officials are among the hundreds of people killed in the unrest, while the remainder of the dead largely consists of suspected Boko Haram followers. Spokesman of the Nigerian Army, Col. Mohammed Yerima, has promised a military "show of force" to reassure civilians that they would be protected. Soldiers and police patrolled Maiduguri in armored personnel carriers and trucks on 31 July, continuing house-to-house searches for Yusuf’s followers. Yar’Adua, who is on an official visit to Brazil, spoke on telephone with northern governors on 30 July and urged traditional and religious leaders to use 31 July prayers to warn people about the dangers of such sects. Yusuf’s death deprives intelligence agencies of the opportunity to question him about possible links to other militant groups outside the country.

[Description of Source: Abuja Punch in English - independent news daily]

Nigeria: Islamic Sect, Boko Haram Poisons Wells in Bauchi

AFP20090731606008 Kaduna New Nigerian in English 31 Jul 09 p 5

The Boko Haram sect, currently waging a war against western education in some states in northern Nigeria, may have diffused poisonous substances into five wells in Bauchi. The Bauchi State Water Board raised the alarm yesterday in Bauchi. The state government had on 27 July raised concern over alleged plot by the zealots to poison sources of drinking water in Bauchi metropolis. Dr Musa Badara, the state’s Commissioner for Special Duties, has therefore, directed the water board to take sample of the alleged contaminated water for analysis. Badara also advised residents in the affected areas not to drink water from the wells until a thorough investigation was concluded. However, an official of the water board, who preferred anonymity, told the News Agency of Nigeria yesterday in Bauchi that the result of the test confirmed that the affected water sources had been contaminated. The official said the contaminated water source was traced to some wells dug by a member of the religious zealots at Fadamar Mada area of Bauchi metropolis.

He said the five wells were contaminated with phosphorous and cyanide which are harmful to human beings and animals. According to him, two of the wells are heavily contaminated while the three others had little quantity of the poisonous chemicals.

"Large deposits of phosphorous and cyanide were found in the contaminated wells and these chemicals are believed to have been used by the fanatics in making explosives.

Phosphorous affects internal organs of humans and animals while cyanide is harmful to the central nervous system. A copy of our findings has been forwarded to the state government. The report recommends that the water in the wells should be drained while the demolished residences of the zealots should be dug and evacuated. It is also recommended that residents of the area should immediately stop using the water either for human or animal consumption," the official added.

[Description of Source: Kaduna New Nigerian in English - federal government owned daily]

Nigeria: Information Minister Comments on Killing of Islamist Boko Haram Leader

AFP20090731617009 London BBC World Service in English 0730 GMT 31 Jul 09

[Telephone Interview With Nigerian Information Minister Professor Dora Akunyili in Lagos by "Network Africa" Host Akwesi Sarpong in London on 31 July on the killing of the leader of the Nigerian Islamic Boko Haram group, Mohamed Yusuf -- live; all sentences as heard]

[Sarpong] We appreciate your time this morning. What can you tell us for starters about Mohamed Yusuf's killing?

[Akunyili] Well, the leader of the group has been killed, according to security forces on ground. Normalcy is gradually returning to the region while security forces are right now carrying out house-to-house search and surrounding areas to flush out the remnants of the Boko Haram militant group.

[Sarpong] And there have been varying accounts in terms of how or where he was killed. The police say he was killed in a shoot-out; other reports suggest he was killed in police custody. Exactly, what happened?

[Akunyili] Well, it is actually the security forces that can tell where exactly he was killed. But what is important is that he has been right now, taken out of the way. So that he would stop using people to cause mayhem in the system.

[Sarpong, interrupting] But now that ...

[Akunyili, interrupting] I think that is what (?we have been offered) right now.

[Sarpong] But now that he is dead, how does the government and indeed the security force plan to get to the bottom of the problem posed by the Boko Haram sect?

[Akunyili] Well, basically, it is the leader and the deputy leader - these people - that are right now out of the way that were actually brainwashing and mobilizing people against so called Western education being evil and terrible and everybody becomes their enemy - both Christians and Muslim. Now, right now, what Nigerian Government is doing, we will intensify on, is to ensure that security is beefed up and as a matter of fact, Nigerian security services, by their quick, swift, and effective reaction, they were able to contain the violence. Because this will extend to other places and right now, we will focus on the seven-point agenda - the seven-point agenda that will generate employment because when these youths are more usefully employed, they will be less likely to be cajoled by anybody into militant tendency. The security forces are carrying out house-to-house searches right, searching surrounding states to make sure that this type of insurgence does not come up again.

[Sarpong] But will you be concerned if Mohamed Yusuf had been killed or was killed in police custody?

[Akunyili] Well, yes, I will be concerned but I am also consoled by the fact that his being out of the way is positive for the country because if he were still to be alive, he is capable of still making what has happened in the last few days come up again and government does not condone extra-judicial killing. Right now, we believe in the rule of law. But I will get more briefing from the security agencies before I comment more on that.

[Sarpong] Now, Human Rights Watch is also saying that it is asking your government to immediately investigate this matter and hold to account all those responsible for an unlawful killing, if indeed, that was the situation. What would be your response to that?

[Akunyili] Well, Nigeria believes in human rights. We believe in rule of law and therefore, I believe that we are going to do something about it to find out exactly what happened. But it is too early right now for me to comment on that since I have not been briefed exactly on the spot where the man was killed and how he died. The only information I got which I will relate to you is that the man is dead and that a normalcy has returned and security forces are trying to ensure that there is no reoccurrence of what happened. And again, I can tell you quickly, it is too early to make allegations against government. It is better for us to wait a while so that the truth will unfold and we get back to you.

[Sarpong] So, at this point, is your government reassured that this violence, this campaign of violence is over then?

[Akunyili] Of course, it is over. Right now, as I speak, we are also trying to be proactive. That is why the security agencies will remain there for a while to ensure that it does not happen again. That is why again, we are carrying out, through the security forces, a house-to-house search and searching the surrounding states to ensure that there is no remnant of any Boko Haram militant group or person. And to be a continuous effort to secure the areas, the state governors are also working with government to this effect.

Alright then, Nigerian Information Minister Prof Akunyili, thank you very much.

[Description of Source: London BBC World Service in English -- External radio service of the United Kingdom's public service broadcaster]

Nigeria: Governor Warns Residents Against Harboring Members of Boko Haram Sect

AFP20090801614006 Abuja Hot FM in English 31 Jul 09

Borno State Governor Alli Mudu Sheriff has warned residents in the state not to harbor members of the Islamic extremist sect group, Boko Haram.

The governor handed down the warning following the killing of the leader of the discredited group, Mohammed Yusuf, by the police.

He said his government has ordered the house to house search for the sect members noting that anyone caught harboring members of the group would be dealt with.

The governor also announced the relax in the imposed curfew in Maiduguri which would now be from 9 PM to 6 AM as against 7 PM to 6 AM during the crisis.

Boko Haram leader, Yusuf Mohammed, according to the police died from bullet wounds.

Borno State Police Commissioner Christopher Dega who announced the captured and death of sect leader said Yusuf Mohammed was arrested hiding in a corner in his in-law’s home.

The Islamic extremist group, book Haram, had in the last five days staged unprovoked attacks in Bauchi, Kano, Katsina, Yobe, and Borno States.

[Description of Source: Abuja Hot FM in English - privately owned, independent radio]

Nigeria: Boko Haram Leader, Deputy Killed, Soldiers Take Over Extremists Enclave

AFP20090801614005 Abuja Cool FM in English 0545 GMT 31 Jul 09

The leader of the extremist Islamic sect, Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed yesterday during a shoot out with security forces after nearly two days of military attack on his Maiduguri, Borno State base.

Mr Yusuf’s deputy who was arrested two days ago has also been killed while the militants’ enclave has been leveled and the place taken over by soldiers.

Governor Alli Mudu Sheriff said the victory against the fundamentalists was achieved with the help of God and President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who he said intervened quickly by deploying troops in the state.