•Why Boko Haram onslaught persists
•We want amnesty – Sect
From TIMOTHY OLA, Maiduguri
Sunday, October 24 , 2010
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Source: Sun News

Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, has been in the news since last year, not for its rich cultural heritage or its unpredictable weather condition, but for the notoriety of a religious sect. For sure, the Boko Haram men finally made their second coming a reality as they set a police station ablaze on Tuesday night, leaving three policemen wounded.

Sources said the men who were armed with machetes and other dangerous weapons stormed the Gamboru Police Station few metres away from their demolished enclave at about 8.30 p.m. and had attempted to force their way inside. “The men numbering about 20 started throwing locally-made bombs into the police station when it was difficult for them to gain entrance immediately they got there due to the iron gate,” a police source told Sunday Sun.

Residents in the area said they were awake throughout the night following heavy gunshots from the scene of the incident. “We couldn’t sleep last night because of sporadic gunshots. We heard the sect members engaged the police in a shootout for about 30 minutes. We just hope we are not in trouble again, because that was how the incident started last year July”, Adebayo, one of the residents, told this reporter.

The police, through its then spokesman, Mai Mamman, an assistant superintendent of police, who confirmed the incident, said an inspector who sustained gunshot injuries in his legs during the attack as well as two other colleagues who had serious burns were being treated at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).
Before then, residents had been living in fear following serial killings of security personnel and traditional titleholders, but by Saturday morning, a new dimension was introduced.

Armed men suspected to be of the Boko Haram fold mowed down an Islamic cleric, Sheikh Bashir Mustapha. The cleric was killed in his house at Layin Gidan Hajiya Mai Tuwon Yasin in Gwange ward of Maiduguri along with one of his pupils, Alhaji Modu Sunoma. It was believed that Sheikh Bashir was killed because of his remarks perceived to be against the doctrine of the sect.

The cleric and his student, Sunoma, it was gathered, were attacked at about 10.30 a.m. by two assailants who walked into his house, pretending to be visitors. “The two men rode on a motorcycle and stopped in front of the house. The one who wore kaftan entered the house and then called the other one outside, a cyclist, on his mobile phone. Shortly after the cyclist entered, we heard gunshots,” a neighbour to the slain sheikh disclosed.

Sheikh Bashir was not the only casualty that week, one Mamman Zannah, an official of Bama Local Government, had on Thursday been shot by four gunmen who rode to his residence on two motorcycles shortly after the evening prayers. They were said to have arrived the man’s house at about 8.25 p.m. while he was in company of his friends and neighbours. The gunmen reportedly shot the council boss severally and reportedly confirmed he was dead before they disappeared into the dark streets of Bama.

A demand for amnesty
With the government pledging its determination to bring those behind the attacks to book, the Islamic fundamentalists, have however, demanded amnesty from the authorities. They made the demand in an interview with the BBC and the Voice of America Hausa Service on Wednesday night through their anonymous spokesman. They also asked for freedom to practise their form of Islam, the unconditional release of their seized mosques by government forces and “justice and equity” in local government affairs, among others.

“We are law-abiding citizens, even though we do not subscribe with (sic) the unjust government of the Western orientation that is being used to govern us here in Borno and Nigeria,” the spokesman said. The sect, however, took responsibility for the recent bomb attack on a police station as well as the targeted killings of police personnel and others by motorcycle-riding assassins. The spokesman said the government brought the attacks on itself after the summary killing of their leader, Mohammed Yusuf in July 2009 in the wake of the first armed insurgence. No fewer than 600 persons died in the crisis.

The sect’s demand for amnesty seems unpopular among Borno residents though.
Abba, a post-graduate student at the University of Maiduguri, tags the demand “absurd, bizarre and nonsense”.
He queries: “How do you justify the heinous crimes committed by these people with what happened in the Niger Delta? Or, what about the souls that have been lost to their mindless killings and weird doctrine?”
Army deploys troops

The ease with which the fundamentalists have so far operated proves one strong point–the police cannot match their sophistication. In recognition of this fact, the army authorities have deployed soldiers to the state reportedly at the request of the state governor. Governor Ali Modu Sheriff, who donated 40 Hilux vehicles to the soldiers for surveillance, also asked the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Onyeabo Azubike Ihejirika for additional troops. But the army boss insisted the security situation must be studied before such request could be granted.

“We have identified the black spots where the armed sect members attacked innocent citizens and policemen. And this helped us in strategising and adopting means on how to deal with the insurgents and guerrilla warfare of the Boko Haram armed sect. Deployment of more troops to Borno as requested by the governor would, however, depend on current security situation,” he declared.

Already, combat helicopters known in military parlance as gunship have commenced air patrol of the city, but the Boko Haram onslaught is far from abated. Barely 24 hours after the handing over of 40 Hilux vehicles to the COAS and launching of a special security outfit codenamed -Operation Mesa by the state government, gunmen reacted by killing another policeman, Inspector Kashim Bukar, at his residence located at Ummarari, Jajeri in Maiduguri. By Thursday, another police officer was shot. Many believe the deployment of troops to the state may not address the problem of insecurity.

A retired police chief who preferred anonymity said government should have rather adopted the technique of warfare. “To me, this approach is wrong. The gunmen who are perpetrating the crime live in the midst of the people and their operations are like guerilla warfare and as such, we need a network of intelligence operations to tackle the problem. The killings are not done on major highways but in areas that are mostly inaccessible,” he argued.
He also expressed the view that motorcycles would be needed for patrol of the streets rather Hilux vehicles which cannot access most settlements in the state capital.

Many also insist that the Boko Haram insurgence in the state has exposed the weakness of the Nigeria Police as lacking in the initiative to tackle contemporary insecurity and crimes such as the one that has so far stretched Borno and other neighbouring Northern states. The police have recorded the highest casualties since the serial killings started, yet the state police command has continually adopted conventional ways of fighting crime.
Sources said the serial killers have a network of informants and spies who trail their targets until their mission is accomplished.

“They are scattered everywhere: in the markets, mosques, social gatherings and other rendezvour in the state. So it is difficult to trail them except with close-knit intelligence work, not the stop-and-search exercises currently going on,” said another source. It was also gathered that the assailants often take different clothing for their operations so as to change their appearance one completion of each attack. Many residents believe the onslaught may not abate until a proactive approach is adopted on the matter.

First executive governor of the state, Alhaji Goni Mohammed, told Sunday Sun in an interview that “the insecurity cannot be disconnected from the unemployment situation in the state,” noting that the deployment of soldiers may not quell the insurgence.

Fear in the air
With the state of things in the state, residents now daily live in fear as no one is sure when the next wave of attacks begin. Many police personnel who spoke to this reporter on condition of anonymity expressed their willingness to quit the job if the authorities fail to do something drastic to tackle the insurgents. Economic activities have also nosedived. The hustle and bustle of the El-Kanemi city has given way to uneasy calm. The metropolis is usually deserted by residents from 7 p.m. for fear of being caught in the crossfire of the serial killers. William, a member of staff of one of the popular Internet cafés in town, said business has been very bad for them since last week.

“Our patronage,” he says, “has been very poor these days. People don’t want to come to the café in the evening again because of the restriction on the movement of motorcycles. It is a very bad situation.” The fresh wave of attacks has also hit the state commissioner of police below the belt. The police boss has been recalled to the force headquarters by his superiors, while a new man has been posted to man the command in his stead.

Sunday Sun gathered that the transfer of Abdul was not unconnected with his dissatisfactory handling of the security situation in the state, particularly the way the police have been losing its personnel. “He appears very helpless and probably incompetent to handle the situation properly,” a top police officer told our reporter.
His predecessor, Chris Dega, and a few police chiefs, it would be recalled, were hurriedly transferred last year shortly after the July 2009 attack. Police authorities claimed it was “a routine exercise and normal for anybody in the service.”

Governor Sheriff, who is apparently troubled over the worsening insecurity in the state, has also announced a cash reward of N500, 000 or $3,333 for any person that provides information leading to the arrest of more suspected Boko Haram fighters.
But then, the Islamic sect issued a five-point demand on Thursday asking the government to release its members arrested and held in various prisons in the state. Reports also indicated that the sect has issued a notice warning people to desist from getting close to the police, ostensibly to avoid being caught in the web of attacks targeted at security operatives. In the notice, the fundamentalists also warned people not to give out information on the group because of the N500, 000 the state government offered as reward to anybody who provides information on their activities. They ordered residents to steer clear of the police, as anybody who ignores the warning would be dealt with.

Meanwhile, the police through its Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Abdullahi Lawal, an ASP, urged the people to disregard notices posted in some public places in the state capital by members of the outlawed Boko Haram warning of trouble. He described the notices as seditious publications which should be shunned and disregarded by members of the public. He also urged the people not to panic but go about their lawful businesses, saying the command has put adequate security measures on place to protect lives and property.

But whether or not the assurances of security by the police should by relied upon by the people would by determined by events henceforth. Sure, the people are waiting and watching to see how government would make the mindless killings and persistent attacks in the “Home of Peace” a matter of the past.