Even as you read this, 14-year-old Habiba Isiaku, abducted on August 16, 2016 remains in the clutches of the Katsina Emirate Council. All efforts by constituted authorities — from the Inspector General of Police, IGP, to the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, and the Nigerian Union Of Journalists, NUJ — to get the girl released, have failed.
According to lawyer to the girl’s parents, Yakubu Saleh Bawa, the Katsina State Commissioner of Police, after a meeting with the parents and the abductor, Jamilu Lawal, returned the captured girl to the emir. Not even a meeting by the Abuja Catholic Achbishop, John Cardinal Onaiyekan with the Sultan of Sokoto and with President Buhari’s has ensured Habiba’s freedom.
Apparently, to the Presidency, abduction and forced conversion of Christian minors to the “peaceful” religion of Islam is no corruption. Shekau and his horde think so too deep in Sambisa Forest. With such tacit support for criminality, is it any surprise that such abductions are increasing by the day in the North? Several other minors have since been abducted — and Islamised.
On Thursday, June 2, 2016, a 74-year-old Igbo woman, Bridget Agbahime, was beaten to death in Kofar Wambai Market, Kano by maniac Islamists in the full glare of the public and law enforcement agents. And in the presence of her husband who could not save her. Her offence, according to reports, was refusal to allow a Muslim fellow perform ablution in front of her shop. The killing sparked sane outrage. President Muhammadu Buhari and the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, promised to ensure justice was done. The culprits were arrested and arraigned in court.
The suspects, Dauda Ahmed (principal suspect who led the mob to clobber the old woman to death), Abdulmumeen Mustafa, Zubairu Abubakar, Abdullahi Abubakar and Musa Abdullahi were charged with a four-count charge of inciting disturbance, culpable homicide, joint act and mischief.
Then while sane Nigerians awaited justice, an order came from the attorney-general of Kano State that the accused persons be freed.
The Principal State Counsel, Rabiu Yusuf, representing the attorney-general of Kano State, told the court that :“Having gone through the case diary, the attorney- general of Kano State evaluated the facts in accordance with Sections 130 and150 of the Criminal Procedure Code, (and) presented the legal advice.” And what was the advice? “That there is no case to answer as the suspects are all innocent…”The highest judicial officer in Kano therefore ordered the court ”to discharge all the suspects.”
That was the end of the case. Apparently, in the view of the President, justice had been done. So he hasn’t ordered a reopening of trial.
What better way to encourage northern fanatics to “go and kill another day”. For the family of the slain grandmother, the agony of losing a loved one so gruesomely is multiplied several folds by the pain of injustice…
For months now, Fulani herdsmen, of whom the President is rumoured to be “Life Patron” have been looting, raping and killing Buhari’s citizens. Though the offenders and their sponsors are identified, hardly any of them has been prosecuted.
Tacitly, they have been licensed to kill.
And they slaughter women and babies not to talk of their men. Many victims are butchered – ISIS style. As you read this, many villages in Benue, Taraba and Kaduna states have been taken over by herdsmen. Neither the Police nor the Army is dislodging them. Killings by herdsmen continue in Southern Kaduna despite curfews.
Though the slaughter of Igbo men, women, babies by herdsmen shocked the nation barely two weeks before Democracy Day, May 29, 2016, Buhari in his nationwide address that day said nothing on the herdsmen’s crimes but he did not forget to condemn pipeline vandalisation by Niger Delta militants, Boko Haram etc.
Here is the first-hand account of a security personnel. The officer arrived at one of the trouble spots as part of security personnel to keep the peace in a part of the country notorious for herdsmen attacks (not “farmers/herdsmen clashes”). And his colleagues called him aside and congratulated him for his posting. He listened aghast as he was told that powerful northern elements had set money aside for security agents so they could look the other way whenever Fulani herdsmen came attacking the villagers. And exactly that was being done. The security men deliberately ignored distress calls from villagers while the herdsmen raped, looted, burned and slaughtered their victims. Then after the marauders were gone, the security men made a show of chasing after them. Then they returned to preach peace and tolerance to the embattled farmers.
The newly posted officer refused to play ball. That almost cost him his life. His colleagues set him up. At a critical moment during a confrontation between his men and the herdsmen, he radioed for reinforcement but was ignored…
Fortunately, he survived to tell his story. It has been happening. It is happening. And may continue to happen. Can the President claim not to know all these?
Yet Buhari looks Nigerians in the face and sermonises on peaceful coexistence in unity — so much for integrity.
If the latest revelations by a cleric from Chibok are anything to go by, they seem to confirm initial suspicions that the alleged kidnap of predominantly Christian Chibok girls by Boko Haram was “officially” executed. According to the cleric, accounts by the released girls differ significantly from what is fed the public about their kidnap. The girls said they were at first taken to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital and kept in the home of a high-ranking politician for about two months before being transferred to Gwoza in the home of yet another politician. All the while, however, Nigerians were being made to look in the direction of Sambisa Forest. It was later when the politician’s Gwoza home was partially bombed that the captives were finally moved to Sambisa Forest.
Is it becoming clear that that there is a smooth working relationship between Boko Haram terrorists and many northern politicians and elite. Till date, the whole government apparatus of the current regime makes a show of concern for those Chibok minors… Can this government claim not to know?
What is being done by Shekau and his horde of mindless killers that is not being done, condoned or encouraged by supposedly sane northern politicians and many members of the perfumed elite? It’s becoming clear why many high-ranking northerners were clamouring for amnesty for those terrorists.
The “terrorist” mentality seems so widespread in the North — from abductions to mindless slaughter.
It is clear that even if the war against the official Sambisa Forest is eventually won, the Sambisa Forests in some palaces and other official enclaves may continue to thrive …
