As security agencies grope in the dark, Abuja has turned to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital city where imported security gadgets that suspect every resident are ubiquitous. In the same fashion, Maiduguri and a couple of towns in the North have become Karachi, equally a Pakistani commercial city, where political parties with religious bias hunt down their rivals, making death as cheap as tears. There is only one explanation for this: Boko Haram is now a franchise, like Mr Biggs, so death, blood and tears are now commonplace. So, activities attributed to members of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad, have taken a frightening dimension, heightening tension in the country.

In a telephone interview with Sunday Trust, spokesman of the Boko Haram, Abul-Qaqa, claimed that some of the attacks attributed to the group were not carried out by the sect. He said, “Our attacks are not difficult to understand because we clearly identify our targets…We don’t just throw bombs anywhere or shoot indiscriminately. For instance, we are not responsible for the bomb blast in a shopping area in Kaduna, which was widely attributed to us. It must be the handiwork of some people who wanted to cause disaffection and dent our good intentions.”

He, however, claimed responsibility for the Christmas day bombing at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger State. “The Madalla attack and those related to it were a retaliation to the Eid-el Fitr attack on Muslims in a mosque in Sultaniyya (Jos) Plateau State,” he said.

He added that “We read a false report which was attributed to us in a newspaper of Tuesday, January 10, 2011 that I personally distanced our group from the Madalla attack. I want to reiterate that we are responsible for the attack,” he said.

He, however, said they were not responsible for the killing of Babakura Alhaji Fugu, the brother-in-law of Mohammed Yusuf, the late leader of the Boko Haram. Our correspondent recalled that Babakura Alhaji Fugu, 47, was also killed on September 17, 2011, few days after he had an audience with former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

“When you follow the circumstances surrounding his death, you will realize that we don’t have any grudge against him. Those who killed him know themselves and why they killed him,” Qaqa said.

Qaqa also distanced his group from some armed robbery incidences on banks in Katsina and Azare in Bauchi State, but claimed responsibility for the attacks in Mubi and Jimeta, Adamawa State, which claimed the lives of many people. He claimed they were in response to a threat to northern Muslims to quit Southern Nigeria.

When Abul Qaqa was asked if the group was sponsoring some Christians to attack churches, such as the incidents in Bayelsa, Kaduna, Plateau and Bauchi, Qaqa said, “This is not true. We have never disguised our identity. It is unthinkable to say we would pay a Christian to attack his fellow Christians. We are always responsible for our actions,” he said.

He said their major targets are security agents. “We also attack Christians who were sponsored by CAN to attack Muslims in various parts of Nigeria. We also kill Muslims who betray the teachings of the Holy Prophet. We have killed some of our members who betrayed the trust we vested on them. Examples include Abdul’Aziz in Bauchi and Abu-Mijan. “Our attacks are quite distinguishable. We always claim responsibility for our actions,” he said.

Qaqa said renewed onslaught by the group got prominence soon after their headquarters in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, was destroyed in 2009 and their founder and leader, Muhammad Yusuf, captured and then killed in custody.

Between 2009 and 2010, the capacity of the Boko Haram to attack was limited to shooting their targets by trailing them on motorcycles. The trend soon reached the use of explosives and culminated in suicide bombings. In September 2010, the group, wielding sophisticated weapons, freed hundreds of its members and other prisoners from the Maiduguri and Bauchi prisons and consolidated their onslaught in December with multiple blasts in Jos which killed over 80 people.

In June, 2011, the Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the bombing of the police headquarters in Abuja, and in August, the group also claimed responsibility for the bombing of the United Nations headquarters, also in Abuja. One of the devastating attacks was launched in Damaturu, Yobe State capital on Friday, November 4, 2011 in which suicide bombers attacked the anti-terrorism building as well as the state headquarters of the police.

Many churches and parts of the federal government secretariat and the office of the Immigrations service were attacked, bombed or vandalized. Over 150 people including security agents were reportedly killed during the mayhem even though the police gave a far less figure. The urban guerrilla tactics of the Boko Haram have posed a new but daunting challenge for security agencies.

Answering a question on when they would stop launching attacks and give peace a chance, Qaqa said, “Until the flag of Islam rises high. The recipe for peace is the unconditional release of our members. Let me repeat what I said: All our members must be released before any attempt at going into negotiations. All the top men in the country are sleeping in the comfort of their rooms and singing the songs of dialogue when our members are being persecuted. This is unacceptable,” Qaqa said.

A REGIME OF SUSPICION AND FRUSTRATION:

Last Sunday, President Goodluck Jonathan demonstrated the frustration of government in tackling the insecurity in the country when he told a gathering at an inter-denominational service to mark the 2012 Armed Forces Remembrance Day at the National Ecumenical Centre, Abuja, that Boko Haram had infiltrated his government. According to him, there were elements sympathetic to Boko Haram in the Federal Executive Council, legislature, judiciary, police, State Security Service and even in the army. The president’s allegation follows the hackneyed pattern of allegations that politicians who were bent on rendering the country ungovernable were behind the controvertial sect, and would ‘soon be exposed and made to face the wrath of the law.’ However, this has not come to be.

The closest to making good its promise was the arrest of Senator Ali Mohammed Ndume and his arraignment allegedly for giving the telephone numbers of top government officials to a ‘Boko Haram’ spokesman. Qaqa told Sunday Trust last night that the conviction of Ali Sanda Umar Konduga, whom the group had earlier said had never been a member of the group, indicated that security operatives have an other agenda, which may be political, other than fishing out its members and solving the problem.

Qaqa said, “We were surprised when security agencies claimed Senator Ndume is our member. If he was arrested and is being tried for being our member, then government has a separate agenda. Again, why is Konduga serving his jail term in the State Security Service (SSS) custody? Why is he given three years in jail after a plea for leniency? Why did his trial go so speedily while many of our members have been held for many months and have not been taken to court for trial? If they believe Senator Ndume is part of us, why did they rush him to court, but left many of our members who have been with them in detention without trial? This is to tell you that government has other objectives other than tackling the crisis at hand.”

Senator Ndume whose mother and many other siblings are Christians, was a member of the presidential committee that investigated the insecurity in the North East. If convicted, he will be jailed for 20 years.

Speaking to Sunday Trust on the spread of attacks across the country and the fear created by the insurgency in spite of the declaration of a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe, Niger and Plateau States, Dr Amaechi Nwokolo, a specialist on International Terrorism said, some persons had apparently taken advantage of the situation to pursue some other agenda in Nigeria.

He said, “It (Boko Haram) is not such a powerful group because it is not based on any serious ideology. But over time, the people who started the organization have lost control. I foresee that the group has several cells all over the Northeast and there may not be a single command structure. I fear that the international community could infiltrate this disorganization to destabilise the country and render it ungovernable.”

Dr Nwokolo argued that those who are using the name of Boko Haram to engage in violence in order to divide Nigeria were cashing in on the poor security system. According to him, “Policing has become a money-making venture, such that policemen think of how much money they could make and not how to protect the people.”

The expert on terrorism feared that if urgent steps are not taken, the situation in Nigeria would be worse than what is obtainable in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In his analysis, “We might have the situation of the two countries merged together. In the two countries, there is the homogeneity of religion, but in Nigeria, it is the disparity of religion. This is where our own situation is very dangerous as the violence is inducing hatred between Christians and Muslims. The mass movement of people from their bases to their states of origin heightens the danger. This is not the real intention of Boko Haram. People are using the group’s name to further the division of the country along religious lines.”

Asked what the solution to the situation is, Dr Nwokolo said the urgent measure should follow the model of the British troops who operated in Basra region of Iraq. “Government has to reach out to the communities, not through violence or state of emergency,” he argued. “Government has to go to village elders, Islamic clerics at the local level, Christian leaders and court them. That was what the British did in Basra. British soldiers engaged in developmental projects: building schools, providing water and all sorts of infrastructure, and meeting the needs of the people. Instead of sitting in Abuja and shouting orders, government has to reach out to the people, find out what they need and provide them. After years of use of force in Afghanistan, the American troops are doing this same thing in Afghanistan. Boko Haram was created by poor governance, and one of the ways to deal with this issue is to alter that impression.”

As Nigerians wait for a breakthrough in tackling the insecurity in Nigeria, several questions remain unanswered: if the Boko Haram sect is not reachable, why do many Nigerians access them on the mobile telephone? Why, in spite of the state of emergency, killings by suspected Boko Haram operatives have not abated? When will government arrest and bring to book the ‘disgruntled politicians’ behind the violence? What are the visible measures to calm frayed nerves now that the violence in degenerating from a face-off between government and the sect to a religious and ethnic face-off? When will normalcy return to the country? Or are we going to live with bombs and gun attacks, like Afghanistan and Pakistan?