The story behind ‘Boko Haram’ • Sect leader died in action – Police

The authorities are hoping the killing of sect leader Mohammed Yusuf, whose movement wants a wider adoption of Islamic law across Africa’s most populous nation, will bring an end to the six-day uprising by his followers. Yusuf, 39, was shot dead while in police detention late on Thursday. Officials have said he died in a […]

The authorities are hoping the killing of sect leader Mohammed Yusuf, whose movement wants a wider adoption of Islamic law across Africa’s most populous nation, will bring an end to the six-day uprising by his followers. Yusuf, 39, was shot dead while in police detention late on Thursday. Officials have said he died in a shoot-out while trying to escape but rights groups have condemned what appeared to have been an execution-style killing. Police Force Public Relations Officer Assistant Commissioner of Police Emmanuel Ojukwu told Weekly Trust in Abuja that Yusuf was killed in shootout between the members of his sect and the police.

“He died in action,” Ojukwu said, adding that investigation will be conducted into the remote and immediate causes of the death of the sect leader. “Thereafter, decision will be taken.” He said the investigation will also cover the circumstances in which he was captured and handed over to the police. But the PPRO said it was not an extra-judicial killing.

A Human Rights Watch researcher, described Yusuf’s killing as “a shocking example of the brazen contempt by the Nigerian police for the rule of law.” Amnesty International called for an investigation and said those behind illegal killings must be brought to justice.

But still, the smoke from the seven days conflagration set in motion by the ‘Boko Haram’ Islamic sect has abated somewhat with the routing of the violent group by the police where hundreds of youths, women and the elderly among them were killed in a confrontation with security operatives. As Weekly Trust’s team of reporters scour various locations in different states where this virulent strain of sectarianism has taken hold and spread, some of the revelations are shocking. In Jos, Plateau State, a parent, Alhaji Mohammed Ahmed Danlami was forcefully separated from his two daughters, Maimunatu and Iklimatu by their Qur’anic instructor, Malam Sani Mohammed, a sect member who called him over the phone and informed him casually that the two girls were being conscripted to go and fight a “holy war”. That the war in question is waged against the state is well-known. Less well-known is the fact that this is a war waged against family values and those of decency, making the society human and not barbaric.

Yobe’s tale of tragedy

In Yobe State, the story of the Boko Haram Sect came to prominence about five years back  precisely in 2004 when some of its members opened a camp in the desert town of Kanamma, the headquarters of Yunusari local government area.

As at that time, authorities said hundreds of youths some reading medicine, pharmacy, engineering, agriculture and humanities dropped out of universities and other tertiary institutions from across Nigeria and join the group with the hope of strategising on how to wipe out government and Western education in all its ramifications. To them, anything Western is against Islam, a claim many Islamic clerics condemn as false.

At the camp, it was reported that the Boko Haram followers were taught how to use guns, fight in the desert like the Taliban insurgents and equally learn other doctrines of the sect which are being propagated by their leader Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf.

After a combat with the joint forces of the military and police at that time, the insurgents were crushed and nothing serious was heard about them, at least in Yobe State until last week when they laid siege at the Divisional Police headquarters in Potiskum where they killed a police officer, a fire service driver and a civilian before they set ablaze the police station, the office of Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) as well as the office of the National Population Commission (NPC). Another police inspector died in hospital a day after from injuries inflicted on him by the sect members and another mobile police was killed during a fight. In all, three policemen were killed within three days.

Investigations by our reporter reveal that most of the Boko Haram members, totalling about fifty, that launched the onslaught in Potiskum were residents of the area that reportedly either dropped out of school or relinquished their source of livelihood to join the sect. Residents of Potiskum and Damaturu say many of the Boko Haram members have completed their university education but suddenly burnt their credential, disowned their families and left.

After fierce battle with the combined forces of the army and the police in a bush in Mamudo, an outskirt town few kilometres away from Potiskum, 33 members of the Boko Haram sect whose age ranges from 20-40 were killed. Some people who saw the corpses at the police headquarters in Damaturu identified many of the dead insurgents. “I know about fifteen of them…in fact five are from the same family in Potiskum. Among them there are students, a carpenter, a driver and a school teacher, all of whom have left all such endeavours long ago to join the sect,” Rabiu Musa, a resident of Potiskum who works in Damaturu said. According to him, most of them lost their senses after listening to preaching by any of the sect leaders and accepting a drink and a date fruit (dabino). “Once you eat the dabino then you would feel that even if you die while fighting you are a martyr”, Rabiu added.

“We feel it is not normal. The Boko Haram sect is a fraternity in which once you are indoctrinated, you are finished because you will never have control over what you are doing. Most of the times, the followers believe that the words of their spiritual leader is eternal”, Baba Na’inna, an opinion leader in Potiskum said.

Throughout last week, many youth reportedly “volunteered” and left Damaturu for Potiskum to meet them in the bush only to be brought back dead after being shot by the police and army. Till date, the combined forces of the police and army are still combing surrounding villages of Potiskum to unmask those that escaped from the enclave of the insurgents before the ambush.

Mohammed Abbas Murtala, the commissioner of police in Yobe State said items recovered from the insurgents at the battle field include six rifles, two pistol, one dane gun, three AK 47 empty magazine, two FNC empty magazines, two pistol empty magazines, thirty two rounds of 7.62mm live ammunitions and eighty one rounds of .9mm live ammunitions.

Some of the weapons were however those that the insurgent carted away after an earlier attack at the police station in Potiskum. It was also gathered that the main target of the Boko Haram sect are security personnel and government establishments.

And in Jalingo…

When a director of School Services from the Taraba State Ministry of Education undertook an inspection visit to a school sometime ago, the conduct and attitude of both the pupils and the teachers were strange and unconventional. He was neither accorded courtesies nor protocols as a visiting official from the education Ministry.  

Rather than welcome the visitor, both the teachers and pupils watched in silence and suspicion as the director and his inspecting team moved from class to class. “Nobody uttered a word to us; rather we were looked at as strangers whose presence at the school premises was prohibited”, said the director who simply gave his name as Hussaini.

Located at Angwan Lariya in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital, Alfurquan Islamic School is said to have been operating secretly over the years before it was recently discovered to be owned by a disciple of the Maiduguri-based leader of the controversial Islamic sect that is opposed to Western education.

Investigations by Weekly Trust show that the ethics taught at the Islamic school are in consonance with the radical philosophy of the Boko Haram Islamic sect which prohibits its adherents from having anything to do with Western education.

For instance pupils of the strange school are said to be forbidden from bathing with soap, eating meat, as well as consuming any food prepared with seasoning cubes. It was in realisation of the unusual traits exhibited by pupils of the schools in their various homes that some parents became uncomfortable and started withdrawing them from the school.

Alhaji Inuwa Jauro Manu Mafindi who, incidentally, is the Taraba State Chairman of the Muslim Council of Nigeria, is one of those parents that have withdrawn their wards from the Alfurquan Islamic School in Jalingo.

“Nobody wants to leave their children in that school anymore. I personally had three of my grandchildren withdrawn from the school when they started exhibiting unusual traits,” Mafindi said.

Authorities of the Taraba State ministry of education have confirmed that the school is “illegal” and has not been registered with the ministry. Anthony Adda, the state Commissioner of Education said it was in this regard and the complaints raised by some parents regarding the unconventional activities at the school that prompted its closure.

“We have written a letter to the Commissioner of Police, Director SSS and the acting Governor of the state notifying them of the discovery and closure of the “illegal” school”, Adda said.

But Weekly Trust checks revealed that authorities of the Ministry of Education in the state were foot dragging over the existence of the illegal school until the recent outbreak of attacks by the Boko Haram sect that started in Bauchi and spread to other states, particularly in the north-east.

Meanwhile, following the closure, the school has now been deserted by both teachers and students, even as security operatives have been detailed to keep vigil over it to avert any possible outbreak of crisis.

Taraba State Police command Public Relations Officer, Sani Babaina confirmed to Weekly Trust that men of the State Police command were maintaining surveillance at the school premises.

As at press time, the proprietor of the school, Sabiu by name, could not be traced. He was said to have left Jalingo two weeks earlier with his two wives and children to join other members of the controversial Islamic sect in Maiduguri.

While at least a dozen soldiers, police officers and prison officials are among the hundreds killed in the unrest, Yusuf’s death deprives intelligence agencies of the opportunity to question him about possible links to other militant groups outside Nigeria.