Nigeria: Report Gives Details, Says Terrorist Groups Gaining Foothold in Nigeria

He said that soldiers deployed to any part of the country must behave responsibly at all times. He said that when the soldiers become the target of bomb attacks, there was the possibility that they might react in a manner not approved by the people.

He enjoined all sides to cooperate with the military in dealing with the new phenomenon. Kashim Shettima, the governor of the state, also disagreed with the elders who said that the continued presence of the soldiers in the streets of Maiduguri has worsened the security situation in the state.

Rather, he said that their withdrawal would increase insecurity in the state. "With no intent to denigrate nor question the motives of eminent personalities agitating for the withdrawal of the JTF from the state, I regret to note that none has offered a tangible alternative to fill the security vacuum that will be created in the event of the withdrawal of the JTF," the governor said.

The JTF has also denied reports that its men were using excessive force against innocent civilians in the state. Jack Nwachukwu Nwaogbo, a Major General and the JTF commander, said that the lies against its men were the handiwork of sponsors, sympathizers, and members of the sect aimed at discrediting the task force so that the sect could have a field day.

He insisted that those killed were members of the sect, saying that his officers were professionals and were in the state to restore order.

Also, many residents argued that the withdrawal of the military would only worsen the precarious security situation in the state.

One security agent in Maiduguri, told Newswatch in confidence that the military campaign against the Boko Haram elements was yielding results. "The military operation has severely crippled the operations of the Boko Haram.

There are hundreds of checkpoints in and outside the state. Wherever they are, we will find them. Their days are numbered. These bombs that they have been exploding here and there are a last minute show. They want us to believe that they are still strong.

But they are not," he said, adding "What they are trying to do now is to create panic with their last strength to lead us into thinking that they are still powerful. But I want to assure you that in less than one month, you will not hear of any bomb explosion here."

The Boko Haram sect has become the nightmare of many residents of Maiduguri. Bombs have become the major weapon of their warfare. In one Jumat prayer in Bulabilin Garnarn, one of their strongest bases, a leader of one of the groups was quoted to have said that they were fighting a Jihad, a holy war against those that are sabotaging their religion.

According to the leader, the saboteurs of Islam include politicians, traditional rulers, security operatives, and unbelievers. They vowed to cut down as many of their enemies as they come across.

Since July 2009, when they launched a major religious violence throughout Northeast Nigeria leaving more than 700 people dead, their activities have not waned. Rather, it keeps increasing by the day.

They have killed scores of religious leaders, politicians, and security operatives, especially those who dare to criticize them. Those killed by the sect include Abba Anas Ibn El-Kanemi, younger brother to the Shehu of Bomo and Modu Fannarni Gubio, governorship candidate of the All Nigeria People's Party in Borno State.

He was immediately replaced by Shettima before the April 2011 elections. Gubio was killed alongside Goni Sheriff, younger brother to the immediate past governor. On 9 Jul, the group made an attempt on the life of Shettima, the governor of the state.

He barely escaped a bomb attack when he was on a condolence visit to AKotoko residential area in Maiduguri. A 10-year-old almajiri boy was strapped with a bomb by suspected Boko Haram members and was instructed to proceed towards the governor.

But as the boy approached the delegation of the governor, a security detail saw the strange boy and quickly moved him away. The bomb was immediately spotted and the anti-bomb squad attached to the governor's convoy managed to detonate it.

The governor was said to have wept profusely when he saw how far the group was willing to go to actualize their satanic mission. A number of churches and pastors were also attacked by the group. For instance, the group claimed responsibility for the bomb that exploded in St. Patrick's Church, Dadal.

Last month, the group’s attacks led to scores of death including those of children and women. Banks were also not spared by the militants who used stolen cash from the financial institutions to finance their operations.

The group had on several occasions attacked First Bank, Bank PHB, and Unity Bank, all in Maiduguri. In these attacks, they carted away millions of naira and killed some customers and staff in the process.

But members of the group tried to justify the theft of banks' money in a conference telephone interview in Hausa language with journalists in Borno State on 13 Jul.

Abu Zaid, the group’s spokesperson, claimed that they attacked banks because the mode of operations of the banks contravened the Sharia legal system and that they wanted to cleanse it from all forms of illegalities.

But when asked whether robbery was permissible in Islam, Zaid said: "We had carefully investigated the affected banks and found that the owners and majority of its depositors were big men who siphoned public funds and kept them there.

We also discovered that even if we take the money, the government would definitely pay them." But when told that small depositors, including students, traders, and low income civil servants also keep their money in the banks, he said, "Small depositors will not be gravely affected."

But Newswatch learnt that the Boko Haram finances its operations from these stolen funds. Whenever a member of the group is assigned a mission to kill or plant bombs, he would receive cash payments before such assignments.

The amount he gets depends on the nature and risk associated with the operation. For instance, the 16 Jun attack on the Nigerian Police Headquarters in Abuja was said to have been carried out by one Mohammed Manga, a Boko Haram adherent.

Though Zaid told Blueprint, an Abuja-based magazine, that Manga, who carried out the attack was a fairly well-to-do businessman who had willed N4 million to his family before embarking on the suicide mission, Newswatch was, however, told by sources in Maiduguri that the N4 million was actually what the group paid him to kill Hafiz Ringim, the inspector general of police in his office.

It was also gathered that the said Manga was a taxi driver in Maiduguri. Before he embarked on the mission, the sect members were said to have prayed for his corpse in advance before he later died in the blast.

From what Zaid told the magazine, Manga was a 35-year-old married man with five children who drove overnight from Maiduguri to Abuja, to carry out the deadly attack which left about five people dead, including a police officer. "He had left N4 million in his will for his five children - two girls and three boys before embarking on the fateful journey to the nation's capital," the magazine quoted Zaid as saying.

Penultimate week, another twist was added to the Boko Haram insurgency when Alimodu Sheriff, former governor of Borno State, was spotted at the State Security Services office in Abuja. His visit came shortly after Jeremiah Useni, chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum, explained that the emergence of Boko Haram was traceable to the former governor, who used them as political thugs.

"It started like a Borno affair but now it is becoming a national problem. I remember when I was the deputy national chairman of the ANPP, I went to the state to commission some projects and when we were driving along one of the major streets, I saw young boys selling petrol in jerry cans and I asked him (the governor), why he allowed them to be selling on a major road like that and he said, "no, no, leave them, they are very useful during the general elections, we can use them to turn everywhere."

But Sheriff described as lies the allegations that he formed Boko Haram, insisting that the sect had been there years before he became governor. Sheriff, who spoke shortly after a closed-door meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, also denied ever having such conversation with Useni.

When asked whether the revelation by Useni was the reason he was invited by the SSS, Sheriff said no. He said that he went to the SSS on his own but did not explain why.

Barely one week after the former governor dissociated himself from forming and bankrolling the dreaded radical Islamic sect, an adherent of the group, however, said that instead of supporting them, Sheriff operated a separate killer squad alongside Isa Yuguda, current Bauchi State governor, and Danjuma Goje, former governor of Gombe State.

Ali Shekau, the adherent, told THEWILL, an online publication that Sheriff was not their member. "We don't have anything to do with him. He is evil. He is a tyrant that worked in tandem with his colleague, Isa Yuguda in Bauchi and Danjuma Goje in Gombe to undermine our movement.

Just as he tried to destroy us, God will surely eliminate him. All the three of them had their killer squads. Goje had Yan Kalare, Yuguda has Yan Sara Suka, and Sheriff had ECOMOG. They all used these groups to perpetrate mayhem that were blamed on Boko Haram at different times.

"But nobody blamed them. It was Boko Haram," Shekau said.

He also said that they were fighting the government because security agencies had chased and killed their members. "We have no other alternative but to defend ourselves since we do not have any other person that will fight for us except Allah. That is why we have been seeking ways to fight for our rights," he said.

The three men had publicly apologized to the group but they seem not to be pleased with the apologies. They have continued to mount series of bomb attacks against anyone that does not believe in their ideology.

Last week, there was an indication that a faction may have developed in Boko Haram sect. This is because of a leaflet being circulated in the state by a group which called itself Yusufiya Islamic Movement.

In the leaflet, the group distanced itself with the bomb explosions in places of worship and the assassination of innocent citizens. According to the leaflet, their struggle was against security operatives and the former governor of Borno State over the killing of their leader.

They warned the other group that has been perpetrating criminality in the name of Jihad to desist from doing so or risk being exposed by them. The group also announced a temporary ceasefire during the Muslim month of Ramadan.

The federal government seems helpless in dealing with the menace of Boko Haram. Apart from the government's carrot and stick approach in dealing with the situation and the military operations being carried out by the JTF, there seemed to be no clear-cut strategy to address the menace.

Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State said that the situation in Borno would not have been this bad if the government had been more proactive and alive to its responsibilities. According to him, intelligence gathering was needed to fight Boko Haram and the government has failed because of inept leadership.

Olisa Agbakoba, a senior advocate of Nigeria, blamed the government for failing in intelligence gathering. He advised President Jonathan to vigorously shake up the framework supporting Nigeria's security processes, which include the human intelligence, electronic intelligence, communication intelligence, and photographic intelligence.

But Ibrahim Mohammed, a senior lecturer in the department of sociology, University of Maiduguri, attributed the menace of the Boko Haram to the anger of deprived youths in the country. He said that with the high rate of youth unemployment, all manner of crimes such as the activities of Boko Haram, kidnapping and other vices were to be expected.

"There is a serious economic violence on the people and that is why those with violent intentions can easily employ them. That is why religious organizations that talk about the youths get large followers."

Boko Haram, which figuratively means "Western or non-Islamic education is a sin," is a controversial Nigerian militant Islamist group that seeks the imposition of Shariah laws in 12 northern states of Nigeria. The group presently has an undefined structure and chain of command.

The official name of the group is Jama 'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda' awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic means "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad." The literal translation is "Association of Sunnis for the Propagation of Islam and for Holy War."

It became known internationally following sectarian violence in Nigeria in 2009. But residents of Maiduguri, where it was formed in 2002, dubbed it Boko Haram. Loosely translated from the local Hausa language, this means "Western education is forbidden."

Residents gave it the name because of its strong opposition to Western education, which it sees as corrupting Muslims. The term Boko Haram comes from the Hausa word boko meaning "Animist, western or otherwise non-Islamic education" and the Arabic word haram figuratively meaning "sin" but literally means "forbidden."

Boko Haram opposes not only western education but also western culture and modem science. The group came into existence in the 1960s but only started to draw attention in 2002. Mohammed Yusuf became its leader in the same year.

In 2004, it moved to Kanamma in Yobe State, where it set up a base called "Afghanistan," from where it attacked nearby police stations, killing police officers. Yusuf was hostile to democracy and the secular education system.

He vowed that the "war that is yet to start would continue for long" if the political and educational systems were not changed. In a 2009 BBC interview, Yusuf stated that the belief that the world is a sphere is contrary to Islam and should be rejected along with Darwinism and the theory that rain comes from water evaporated by the sun.

In 2002, Yusuf formed the Boko Haram in Maiduguri. He set up a religious complex, which included a mosque and an Islamic school. Many poor Muslim families from across Nigeria, as well as neighboring countries, enrolled their children at the school. But Boko Haram was not only interested in education.

Its political goal was to create an Islamic state and the school became a recruiting ground for jihadists to fight the state. In Bauchi, the group reportedly refused to mix with local people. The group members speak only in Arabic.

In July 2009, the Nigerian police started investigating the group following reports that it was arming itself. Several of its leaders were arrested in Bauchi, sparking deadly clashes with security forces which led to the death of about 700 people.

On 30 Jul, 2009, Yusuf was killed in Maiduguri by Nigerian security forces after being taken into custody. In January 2010, the group struck in the Borno State capital, killing four people in Dala Alemderi ward, while the sect freed more than 700 inmates from a prison in Bauchi State.

In December 2010, members of the sect bombed a market and 92 of its members were arrested by the police. Their activities peaked on Friday, 28 Jan, 2011 when the ANPP governorship candidate was assassinated along with his brother and four police officers.

About a month after, the sect gave conditions for peace which included that Sheriff should step down from office with immediate effect and that its members should be allowed to reclaim their mosques in Maiduguri.

On 9 May, it rejected an offer for amnesty made by Shettima, the then governor-elect of Borno State. Instead, the group intensified its atrocities against the state. On 29 May, it planted and detonated bombs in some northern towns. About 15 people died in the blasts.

On 17 Jun, the group attacked the Force headquarters at Louis Edet House, Abuja. About 73 vehicles were destroyed by the bombs detonated by a suicide bomber. Officials believed that the attack was the first suicide bombing in Nigeria’s history and that it specifically targeted Hafiz Ringim, the inspector general of police.

Nine days later, on 26 Jun, the sect bombed a beer garden in Maiduguri. The militants on motorcycles threw explosives into the drinking spot, killing about 25 people. On 27 Jun, another bombing in Maiduguri attributed to the group, killed at least two girls and wounded three officers of the Nigeria Customs Service.

On 3 Jul, another bombing of a beer garden in Maiduguri killed at least 20 people. The fear of Boko Haram was said to have forced President Jonathan to receive Donald Cameron, the British Prime Minister, in Lagos instead of Abuja on Tuesday, 19 July.

At a meeting, Jonathan told his visitor that Boko Haram began as a religious agitation but has snowballed into a monster. He, thereafter, promised to deal with the issue in order not to jeopardize foreign investment in the country.

Now, more than ever before, security has been tightened at the nation's airports in Abuja, motorists are frisked, especially at night to forestall bomb attacks. Last week, President Jonathan met with Shettima, members of the Borno Elders' Forum, and politicians from the three leading parties with a view to finding lasting solution to the crisis.

How long the nation will reel under the threat of Boko Haram? That is the big question.

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

Nigeria: Spokesman Says Northern Elites Formed Radical Islamic Sect

AFP20110728686006 Port Harcourt The Tide in English 28 Jul 11 p 11

[Report by Andy Osakwe: "Spokesman Blames Elites for Boko Haram Formation"]

Just when the federal government of Nigeria is seeking to unravel the faces of patrons of a new Christian militia group called Akhwat Akwop, the Jama’atul Ahlus Sunna Lid Da’awatis Jihad, otherwise known as Boko Haram, has promised to reveal soon, the identities of some prominent Nigerian northerners who were brains behind the sect. This is just as the federal government is seeking to unravel the faces of patrons of a new Christian militia group called Akhwat Akwop.

An adherent of late Muhammad Yusuf, the slain leader of the group, Mallam Ali Teshako, confessed yesterday that the original brains behind the sect’s formation were northern elites, who under the pretext of sponsoring youths to study in the Middle East, subsequently offered them as mercenaries to countries interested in training terrorists.

Mallam Teshako who dismissed the Akhwat Akwop as another "group of vultures" that wants to feast on the misfortunes of the apex government attributed its emergence to lack of good governance and injustice in the country. "This is another group of thieves who want to seek relevance from the government," Mallam Teshako explained. Reports say that the spokesperson of JASLIDAT, also known as Yusufiyya, named after its slain leader, said the original name of the group was the Taliban.

It added that the name Boko Haram was not the original name, but given to it by people in the states where they have followers and have been clashing with security operatives.

According to him, when those who formed JASLIDAT thought that they could manipulate Yusuf into towing their line, he resisted.

"If he were alive, he would have spilled the beans on them. But nonetheless, we will reveal their identity at our convenience," Teshako stressed.

He said the clashes between the group and security operatives in the country were as a result of the provocations by the police. He recalled that in 2009, the police who had shot dead two of their members traced them to a cemetery where they went to bury them and wounded 20 more people.

"Still not satisfied they trailed those wounded to a hospital in Maiduguri and prevented them from getting blood donations and treatments. In the wake of all these, we were hounded, chased from our homes, some of us were killed and many were arrested, including myself," Teshako maintained.

However, former governor of Borno State Ali Modu Sheriff, one of those alleged to have helped form Boko Haram has denied the charge, saying the group was formed three years before he was elected governor of the state. Sheriff of the All Nigeria Peoples Party [ANPP] was governor of Borno State from 2003 to 2011.

The former governor also denied issuing an apology to the sect and being quizzed by the secret police [SSS] over the radical sect even though he admitted visiting the SSS headquarters a few days weeks but failed to disclose his reason for doing so.

Answering questions from State House correspondents inside the Presidential Villa after a meeting with President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Sheriff was particularly upset at a statement credited to the chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum [ACF], General Jerry Useni (rtd), who yesterday accused him of propping up touts for election purposes which he said led to the formation of the Boko Haram sect, just like governors of some Niger Delta states maintained an army of touts that later became rebels and militant groups in the oil area.

Useni said he warned Sheriff about the touts a few years ago but the then governor told him they were useful during elections. "This report is not correct; I saw it on the pages of newspapers today. But since I didn’t speak to General Useni, I gave him the benefit of doubt by not commenting on it but now that you journalists say that he came here and he told you, that story was not correct. He said that he saw people selling petrol on major streets of Maiduguri. The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation [NNPC] depot in Maiduguri did not receive petrol from Kaduna refinery for over 15 years and marketers go to Kaduna and Lagos get petrol and people buy it and sell. Innocent people cannot be Boko Haram. Boko Haram and these boys selling petrol are two different things," Sheriff told journalists.

Continuing his explanation, he said, "In any case, I did not even introduce the selling of petrol in jerry cans to Borno State it has been in existence before I came. If all the past military and civilian governors in Borno State did not ban the selling of petrol outside petroleum stations, why should I come and ban people who are legitimately earning a living. There is no responsible government in Borno State or Nigeria that will allow a young man carrying arms on the street and be allowed to sell on the street. So that report is most unfortunate and I am surprised that somebody like General Useni will be making a public statement like this because of his age. I respect him and I also believe that he should always be cautious when speaking in public otherwise, the age he has earned and the position he has earned would be in question," Sheriff stated.

When asked his mission to the Villa he simply said as a former governor he has a right to see the president to discuss important matters. Sheriff also added that the leader of the Boko Haram sect was killed in Abuja five years before he was elected governor.

"Boko Haram has been in existence before I became a governor. The so-called leader of Boko Haram was arrested and was executed in Abuja before I even thought of becoming the governor of Borno State. People make comments on what they don’t know and in life, you don’t speak on matters that you are not very competent. Whoever said that I am a mentor of Boko Haram is most unfortunate and it has no truth in the statement.

Commenting on his alleged apology to the terrorist group a few weeks ago, Sheriff said, "I didn’t apologize to Boko Haram. I apologized to every citizen of Borno State when I was leaving office in my 29 May speech. You can see that the Boko Haram said that they will stop what they were doing if the governors of Gombe, Bauchi and Borno apologized to them publicly. The two governors have done publicly. I only lifted from my 29 May speech on what I have done in the last eight years. I said I have served them for eight years, I must have in one way or the other offended people. I ask everybody that I have offended including Boko Haram to forgive me.