‘How ‘Boko Haram’cleric abducted our children’

But with the establishment of Qur’an and Islamic schools across the country, parents then resolved to allow their children to learn Qur’anic and western education at home by entrusting them to the teachers. This reduced the number of children who travelled. However, some parents became victims of acts they did not expect, because some of […]

But with the establishment of Qur’an and Islamic schools across the country, parents then resolved to allow their children to learn Qur’anic and western education at home by entrusting them to the teachers. This reduced the number of children who travelled. However, some parents became victims of acts they did not expect, because some of the Islamic clerics of Boko Haram sect started abducting their students to unknown places in the name of jihad without the consent of the children’s parents.

Plateau State is one of the states where one cleric disappeared with 12 female students who were between the ages of 12, 14, 17 and 19 from Bukuru, Jos, to an unknown destination. This also happened in places like Kaduna, Katsina, Bauchi and Adamawa states.

Weekly Trust gathered that eight of the students were abducted in Bukuru, two in Federal Low Cost and two in Dogon Dutse. Narrating how the incident happened to Weekly Trust, Alhaji Mohammed Ahmed Danlami said he lives at No. 41 Layout in Bukuru and his two daughters – Maimunatu Mohammed and Iklimatu Mohammed – were abducted from an Islamic school in Bukuru under the pretence of taking them on jihad without their father’s consent.

Mohammed Danlami, who is the chairman of Jama’atu Izalatul Bidi’a Wa Ikamatus Sunnah in Jos South Local Government Area, said that on 18th July, 2009 at around 4:30pm, his daughters set out for school as was their custom. And since then, both girls have not been seen or heard from up till today.

He said one of their teachers known as Mallam Sani Mohammed on that day called his number. So when he saw a missed call on his phone, he called the number and the caller said his name was Sani. According to Danlami, Sani said he was in a car then, and when he gets to his destination, he would buzz, so that Danlami wiould call him, to which he agreed.

The chairman said before he called the second time, it was time for the evening prayer, so he went to the mosque. Narrating, he said, “When I came back from the mosque, I saw a missed call again from that same number. Then I called and the caller asked me if I could still recall his voice. I said yes, are you not the cleric? And he said yes.

“Sani told me that he was on his way to jihad. He said the main reason why he called me was to inform me that two of my daughters, Maimunatu and Iklimatu, were with him, because they have chosen to follow God and His apostle above their parents and that he just wants to apologise to me, and by God’s grace, they would return in peace” he said.

He added that he asked Sani why he would take his daughters on jihad without his consent, to which Sani replied that he knows the holy Qur’an and that Danlami should accept his apology, saying that he would bring them back in good health and in peace. He said he was giving Danlami his word.

Danlami said he told Sani that the Holy Qur’an said everybody that is going on jihad should first seek the opinion of his parents. “I told him he’s claiming to know the Qur’an, and is taking my daughters on jihad without my consent? I further asked him, by the way, where are you right now and he said that they had honestly gone very far as they’d been on the trip since morning. “Then I said, ‘Mallam, why are you lying to me? You claim to be a cleric and you lie? He asked how, and I said I saw my daughters around 4:30am preparing for school and he was telling me that they had been on the trip since morning?

“He then added that the first set left since morning, but that my daughters were going to join them now” and he refused to allow me to speak with them.”

Danlami told Weekly Trust that joined forces with six other parents whose daughters had been abducted by the cleric and reported the case at B Divisional police post in Bukuru and that all their efforts to retrieve the girls proved abortive.

He said some of the parents went to Maiduguri in search of their children and they met with the leader of Boko Haramun sect, Mohammed ibn Yusuf. “He told our delegates that abducting female students is not part of his daawah (preaching) and he called the number of the cleric who abducted our daughters several times but he did not pick the call.”

Danlami told this reporter that Mohammed Yusuf then sent his men to the three camps where he used to keep his followers but they did not trace his daughters and those of the other parents, but they met two female students from Plateau State who said they were from Federal Low Cost.

“He then pledged that he would keep in touch if he saw Mohammed Sani and take our children back. He also asked if our delegates knew the parents of the female students from Federal Low Cost, so that he would ask them to come and take their children back home,”. Danlami added

In their separate comments, two of the parents, Malam Isa Abba Faraga and Malam Hussaini Yahaya who were among the delegates that went to Maiduguri told Weekly Trust that it was the same Mohammed Sani who abducted their daughters they said the cleric was born and grew of in Bukuru.

The men said the cleric phoned their wives and told them that their daughters were with him, so in the night, together with the cleric’s father, Alhaji Usman Bebeji, they searched almost every house close to theirs up to 3am with no luck. The embattled parents said they learnt that their daughters were in Ngomari Customs, because they called one boy in Bukuru and when the parents called the number back, they discovered it was a business centre in Ngomari Customs.

They added that while in Maiduguri, they spent about three thousand naira on recharge card, and when a woman picked their calls, she said she lives in Ngomari Customs and that she was entrusted with some female students, but she refused to disclose where she lives.

The Plateau State Police Commissioner, Mr Gregory Anyangting, confirmed the incidents and said it was the parents that gave out their children so that they could cook food for the clerics in Bauchi and Maiduguri while those ones were fighting. He added that police will not give up till they return the abducted girls to their parents.

Shedding more light on the issue, the Police Public Relations Officer, Mohammed Lerama, said eight female students were reported to have disappeared with their clerics without the consent of the parents and police were working with the parents to see if they could return the students to them.

The state Commissioner of Information, Mr Gregory Yenlong, told Weekly Trust that, “The government has opened a register in the office of the state Police Commissioner, Mr Gregory Anyangting and have invited those whose daughters disappeared with the cleric to submit names and passports and where they live, so that government would facilitate the recovery of their daughters,” he said.

Yenlong said the abducted citizens are citizens of Plateau State government, so they will liaise with the Borno State government and security operatives in the two states to rescue the girls. He advised the parents to cooperate with the government in its effort to return the children, and reiterated the commitment of the government to protect the lives of its citizens, while carrying out developmental projects that will uplift the standard of living of the electorate.