Contrary to widely held beliefs that members of the muslim sect, "Boko Haram," launched an attack on Bauchi town, the security operatives in the state were the ones who effected a pre-planned swoop on the group after a prolonged period of monitoring, the governor of Bauchi State, Isa Yuguda, told NEXT.
The disciples of Muhammad Yusuf, the 30-year-old leader of the Maiduguri-based sect, had planned to attack Bauchi because of a series of scholarly disputations between the sect's leader, Yusuf, and several Bauchi-based Islamic scholars, including Ali Ibrahim Fantami, Malam Idris Abdul Aziz Bauchi, and others.
The encounter between the sect's members and the police was actually at Dutsen Tanshi, on the fringes of Bauchi town, where the boko haram followers had camped to plan their infiltration of Bauchi to eliminate their perceived opponents.
Next investigations in Bauchi showed that the rejectionists had marked the Islamic teachers and preachers for elimination because of their very public disputations with the views held by Mr Yusuf.
The scholars had at various occasions invited Mr. Yusuf to open debates on the principles and tenets of Islam and both Bauchi-based scholars had on several occasions exposed him to ridicule by publicly showing his lack of grasp of the Qur'an.
In one of the recorded disputations between Mr Yusuf and Mr Fantami, the sect's leader, who claimed not to have attended primary school, expressed serious reservations about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution; he said the nine planets were named after pagan deities, and despised the big bang theory and the time scale. He claimed to have come across some of these things from Encyclopedia Britannica.
Mr. Yuguda said the state government was aware of the plot of the group and decided to preempt them before they struck.
"We preempted them," he said. "We got the security forces to lay ambush for them from 4 am. Our men were lying down on the ground and in trenches, exchanging fire with these fanatics. If they [the security operatives] had not done their work diligently, they [the invaders] would have finished the whole of Bauchi."
Danger in town
However, while the ambush was taking place in the camp of the bokoharam members, situated along the edges of the Bauchi airstrip, a group of about 30 members found their way to Dutsen Tanshi to threaten Idris Abdul Aziz and his colleagues.
Sile Abubakar, who witnessed the arrival of the well-armed men, said they stopped by the Dar-es-Salaam mosque, shouting threatening words and mentioning the names of a few of the Malams who preached at the mosque.
"I saw them," he said. "About thirty of them, with guns and other weapons. It was just around the subh [early morning] prayer. On sighting them, we all ran into the house and hid ourselves. They were insulting Fantami and Abdul Aziz, but it was Yau that was preaching that morning. So they headed for the police station."
Mr. Yau, who works at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, confirmed the incident but would not comment further.
"I have said all there is to say about the incident to some of your people that fateful day and please I would not want to be further involved in this matter," he told Next in Bauchi.
Next had sought clarification on the allegation that the state government was inducing some scholars to debunk Mr. Yusuf's style of teaching. But Mr. Yau would not comment on that.
The 30 fighters engaged the policemen at the Dutsen Tanshi police station in a shoot-out, but were over powered. One was shot dead and many others were apprehended and locked up.
Mr. Yuguda, who visited the arrested men in police cell, narrated how one of them, a citizen of Bauchi State, confused the teachings of the Qur'an on the solar system with the one in his geography book.
"I did geography and it happened to be my best subject," the governor said, "and when the boy could not defend what he was told and what the movement of the sun truly is, I got wild."
He said he was moved by the presence of a seven-year-old lad in the detention cells. "You can see his sorrow," he said. "He was just about seven years old.
He was about to weep, but we told him to keep quiet. He had only a small boxer short, very dirty; his ribs are malnourished. ‘Where is your father?' I asked, and he said his father had been caught. ‘What brought you to Bauchi?' and he said his father. And where is your father? And he said he had been caught."
The state governor said the boy's father might have been killed during an encounter with the security operatives.
Marked for elimination
Bauchi State Police Public Relations Officer, Muhammad Barau, confirmed the arrest of 179 members of the sect and the death of 40 others. He said that "the fanatics had a list of people from Bauchi who were marked for elimination."
Mr. Barau said one of the people on the list is Idris and his associates, who had earlier engaged the sect's leader in debates and tried to debunk his hatred for western education based on superior argument taken off chapters of the Qur'an and other teachings like the Hadith [sayings of the prophet].
Many believe the humiliation Mr. Yusuf received from the group of Bauchi muslim scholars prompted the sect's plan to effect an early morning attack on the Dar-es-Salaam mosque, in Dutsen Tanshi area of Bauchi town.
The state government also ordered the demolition of their hideouts around the airstrip.
"When we demolished their place, there was not a single Qur'an found in their rubble," Mr. Yuguda said. "The whole thing is now a national problem."
Mr. Yusuf, the leader of the group, is said to be about 30 years old. State officials said the man's children attend private school, he has his own lawyers and he has his own medical doctors who treat him.
Although peace has returned to Bauchi, all the roads leading to the town are heavily manned and vehicles are searched for hidden weapons before one is cleared to proceed into the city. Neighbouring states like Plateau have also since adopted the same measures of screening travellers.
The Boko Haram members have struck in Maiduguri, Yobe and Katsina in the last seven days. Many of them have also been arrested.
However, the most curious arrest is that of the reporter of one of the national dailies, who was said to have been converted to Islam and joined in marriage to his wife by Mr. Yusuf.
At first, the individual was said to have been accused by one of the gang members of being an agent of the security agencies and he was taken away to their camp. But his sudden reemergence raised eye brows, especially after he was said to have approached the Chief Security Officer (CSO) of the state to find out what the armoured tanks in the Government House premises were for and if they were to be used on the renegades.
This led the CSO to take the reporter in for questioning. He has since been detained at the Government House, his mobile phones yanked off him, and left incommunicado.
Reader Comments (20)
post a comment
* = Required information