Jonathan, Sambo, Ihejirika, El-Rufai Joint Sponsors of Boko Haram

Posted by African Examiner Articles/Opinion, Latest Headlines Friday, September 19th, 2014

Written by Obinna Akukwe

As far as I am concerned, Nigeria’s leader, Goodluck Jonathan, his Vice Namadi Sambo, former Army Chief Azubuike Ihejirika and Former FCT Minister Nasir El Rufai are all joint sponsors of Boko Haram and one group cannot extricate itself from the mess Nigeria is facing. Others in this ignoble group include Bamanga Tukur (sacked ruling party chairman), Sambo Dasuki ( NSA) , Retired IGP Abubakar and all the service chiefs who served since the former NSA Azazi revealed that Boko Haram sponsors are in the ruling party. Therefore, the attempt to hinge the sponsorship of Boko Haram on Ihejirika alone as though others are clean is as despicable as the attempt to pin Boko Haram sponsorship on Buhari.

I was the first writer to classify Boko Haram into three in a piece on PDP Boko Haram initially released on the 2nd of February 2012. In the said article I stated that “The Boko Haram as presently constituted has three wings. The pro-sharia Boko Haram which is the offshoot of the one led by late Alhaji Yusuf, the All Queda Boko Haram which is sponsored by Arab support and the Peoples Democratic Party Boko Haram which wants to prevent President Goodluck from contesting for a second term in 2015 or stifle his seven year tenure elongation bid.” , and I still maintain that the three types of insurgency can be classified as (1) PDP Boko Haram (2) Sharia Boko Haram (3) Al Queda Boko Haram.

The PDP Boko Haram has split with some migrating to the opposition APC while some are still within the party. The PDP Boko Haram can be further subdivided into three (1) The Northern leaders/Governors Group (2) The Presidency Group (3) The Military Contractors group. I have written piece in 2012 that exposed the activities of each group and those entire things I stated which was ignored is now coming to hunt the nation.

The Northern Leaders/ Governors Group include PDP Governors, some of whom have decamped to the APC. It also include persons like the former National Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur who as the second most influential northern politician told the nation on the 16th of May, 2012 while receiving party chieftains from Gombe State that “Boko Haram is fighting for justice; Boko Haram is another name for justice.” The same stance of Tukur was also echoed by Arewa Consultative Forum and other prominent Northern forums and politicians from both the PDP and APC and they all asked Jonathan to dialogue with the sect. Those who claimed Boko Haram is fighting for justice are also sponsors of Boko Haram.

Another PDP leader fingered as a sponsor of Boko Haram was Senator Ali Ndume representing Borno South Senatorial District. This Senator was dragged to court by Nigeria’s Secret Police, the SSS, for giving names of judges to Boko Haram among others offences and in order to free himself, Ndume deposed in an affidavit before Abuja High Court that the Vice President of Nigeria Architect Namadi Sambo authorized his romance with Boko Haram. According to Ndume’s affidavit “The Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency Namadi Sambo, is also aware that he was in contact with the Jammatul Sunnah Walid Jihad (otherwise known as ‘Boko Haram’).

PDP Governors like Rabiu Kwakwanso of Kano State has been fingered as using Boko Haram to harass the late Emir of Kano, HRH Ado Bayero and the Igbo Community in Kano. It was alleged that Bayero felt that Kwakwanso was not doing enough to stave off the insurgency, and for the misgivings of the late Emir, he was visited twice with death from assassination through the bullet and later through bomb blast. Kwakwanso threatened to balkanize Kano Emirate, a week before Bayero died. This Governor was till late last year a member of the PDP.

The Presidency branch of Boko Haram include aides of President Jonathan from all parts of the country, especially from Niger Delta who saw the raging insurgency in the North as means of automatically nullifying the hostile votes from the North East, thus making winning a second term easy for their kinsman. I have alluded to that in an earlier piece in 2012. While the Presidency group never armed the insurgents, they failed to do enough to stave off the insurgents. They failed to arrest the Boko Haram sponsors because they can reap political capital out of the madness. This act also makes them Boko Haram sponsors

The military branch of the PDP includes the likes of former Army Chief, Ihejirika and all the former service chiefs who benefitted from over bloated defense budgets. Former IGP Abubakar and NSA Dasuki are all beneficiary of inflated defense expenditures. When these military chiefs from both East, West, North and South of Nigeria saw through the insincerity of politicians in acting on the security reports before them for obvious political reasons, they did a u-turn and decided to help themselves with the national cake by looking the other way while the militants over run the nation. The more the crisis, the more money is released and embezzled. The less the crisis, the leaner the budget. Therefore, exposing Ihejirika is akin to exposing all the service chiefs.

Another former PDP chieftain who decamped to the opposition, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is also among those fueling support for the insurgency. Mallam El-Rufai, a consummate human right and anti corruption crusader, also has some ubiquitous interest in festering Boko Haram insurgency in the North of Nigeria. El-Rufai heads the propaganda machinery of the opposition and he is adept at it. One of their strategies is to exaggerate any human rights violations of the military authorities in order to discredit the Jonathan regime. Thus the protesting voice of the likes of El-Rufai discouraged the military authorities in their resolve to stamp out terror. It was combined pressure from El-Rufai and his band of propagandists and the protest of Borno Elders that led to the disbandment of the Joint Task Force (JTF), in Borno, and its replacement with the 7th Division. Since the 7th Division took over the fight against terror, Mallam Shekau and his band gained upper hand.

Therefore, sponsors of Boko Haram are in the PDP and APC. They also include former Military Chiefs who couldn’t understand why politicians cannot permit them to strike at terrorists and arrest their sponsors. These military chiefs including Ihejirika, Abubakar and others decided to use defense budgets to help themselves. The opposition APC never allowed the military authorities to come hard on terrorists, they weakened them with false propaganda so as to showcase Jonathan as a failure and El Rufai was the arrow head. The Presidency Boko Harm believes that if insurgency ends before 2015 election, they may lose northern Muslim votes to Buhari and they also failed to authorize decisive strike against the terrorists and Jonathan knows this group.

Therefore, Boko Haram is all about various interests and 2015 permutations. I advice these men concerned to put politics aside and put heads together, by so doing, Nigeria may be confronting only the Sharia amd Al-Queda Boko Haram and that will be much easier to contain.

Obinna Akukwe, profetobinna2@yahoo,com