Nasir el-Rufai, the Zaria man, who thrives on controversy and enjoys shooting in all directions from the hip, has again joined the fray stirred by our Australian friend, Dr. Steven Davis, and wants the Federal Government to investigate former Army Chief, General Azubuike Ihejirika (retd) and former Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff now that the man has left his All Progressives Congress (APC) over allegations that they were connected to Boko Haram (BH).
Interestingly, also, Dino Melaye says the APC frustrated Sheriff out of the door, because it knew he was a PDP plant in the party and glibly suggests the party knew his Boko Haram credentials. What a pot of mess, that while they hobnobbed with a known terror sponsor, they did not report to the appropriate authorities.
It was also a little disappointing that Ihejirika did not deem it fit to go to the Department of State Security (DSS) to ask to be investigated when his name popped up. Even though his response to el-Rufai sounded acceptable, it still does not jell until he is cleared by those in charge of such matters.
According to him, “The likes of el-Rufai have been supporting Boko Haram. In fact, el-Rufai and his likes are the same group of people that ensured the army did not to get the requested equipment to deal with this menace once and for all, as they used their cohorts to tell the government that procuring modern equipment were not necessary.
“When the Boko Haram operation started, supporters of the sect like el-Rufai said that there was nothing like Boko Haram and that the army was just killing innocent youths…. el-Rufai said that I was re-inventing the killing of the Ibos during the Biafra war following government’s determination to rid the country of terrorism. It is the same group of el-Rufai that started the human rights abuses campaign. It was done in order to block any international assistance after the state of emergency was declared and the sect was initially tamed. That gave Boko Haram time and respite to build up again.”
Good, but let him go and get a clean bill of health to shut these people up. Anything outside that is crock. But this writer is waiting to hear el-Rufai’s take on the fingers of guilt pointing in the direction of his Emir friend who lives in another ancient city not too far from Zaria. If he cannot remember why, it bears repeating what Nigeria’s Australian friend told TheCable online newspaper.
Read Davis: “Funding (of Boko Haram) is done through a legal channel, through the gatekeeper, the CBN, and that makes it very easy to cover up….One of the biggest suppliers of arms and military uniforms to the JAS (Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, better known as Boko Haram) currently lives in Cairo, Egypt. He is the recipient of money sent by political sponsors from Nigeria. The funds go through the CBN’s financial system and appear to be a legal transaction.
“Meanwhile, the CBN official who handles the funding is an uncle to three of those arrested in connection with the Nyanya bombings. The three boys lived with him. They were arrested by the SSS (Department of State Security) after the bombings but they do not seem to have been interrogated about their uncle in CBN. Or if they have given up information about their uncle then the SSS has not moved against him.
“Also, a senior official of CBN, who recently left the bank, was very close to Sadiq Aminu Ogwuche, the mastermind of the Nyanya bombings who also schooled in Sudan. Boko Haram commanders said Ogwuche’s wife used to visit this top official in his office at the headquarters of the bank in Abuja before the Nyanya bombings. They were very close.”
Either I have become completely daft or this man is referring to a former CBN staff that lives in the manner of Kings in Kano, but I will wait to hear the comments of el-Rufai before I make my own conclusions. While awaiting that, I must confess that the statements of that talkative, Dino Melaye, are shocking, to say the least. Curiously, his signed statement to journalists came in through the APC.
In a lash-out at Femi Fani-Kayode who sought to defend some persons the Australian named as sponsors of Boko Haram, Melaye had this to say: “I am glad that the truth about Boko Haram’s sponsors has finally come out. I advise the Jonathan Administration to look inwards instead of unleashing attack dogs on Dr. Davis and sending spin doctors, some of whom will do anything to evade justice over the allegation they face on their own, to the media to try to change the narratives.
“Those who planted Modu Sheriff in the APC so they can label the party a Boko Haram sponsor knew what they were doing. They knew his antecedents. And when the APC decided to frustrate Modu Sheriff and his likes out of the party, they should simply have embraced him and accepted that they have finally been hoisted by their own petard.”
Furthermore, rightly or wrongly, many have questioned the sincerity of the western powers who claim to be helping Nigeria while in actual fact, they are wolves in sheep clothing, more interested in spying on Nigeria and fanning the ember of delicate our fault lines. Nigeria’s Australian friend said as much when he questioned the manner of assistance offered by the US, UK and France which had not yielded results.
His damning words: “France, UK and the US all agreed in Paris to assist Nigeria, Cameroun and Niger to work on this matter. The US, for example, said they would assist with intelligence. Yet, when Boko Haram members leave their camps, they travel without interference to a town, they destroyed six villages on their way to a particular town, and no one touched them.
“So one wonders if the UK and US are really serious about the matter, and why there has been no collaboration to intercept Boko Haram when they are on their way to these towns. For goodness sake, it is arid area; you can see a convoy six miles away and these guys travel with 20, 40 or 60 vehicles with armed personnel. There is something going on very wrong in the collaboration that was preached.”
In other words, the gentleman wants to know why all the satellites positioned over Nigeria by these so-called friends do not alert the authorities when there are movements of a funny kind in the desert areas. It is obvious we have no true friends because some powers are not happy we went to China and want to deal us a sly hand and disintegrate us by acting as fifth columnists. This writer thinks it is about time we re-ordered our friendships and priorities, lest we prove traducers right that government does not want this nagging problem to end.
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Written by Sylvester Okoro.
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