ESCAPE OF A BOKO HARAM SUSPECT By: Idang Alibi

For a nation that is facing severe security challenge, the reported escape from police custody of a man called Kabiru Sokoto, who, from what has so far been said of him, can very well answer to being a major Boko Haram suspect, is nothing short of a monumental scandal. Kabiru, who is reported to be one of the masterminds of the infamous Christmas Day bombing of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madalla in Niger state, was said to have been trailed by security agents to the Borno Governor’s Lodge in Abuja, arrested and handed over to the police for further investigation. He was reportedly then taken in handcuff to Abaji in Abaji Area Council of the FCT where he is said to have a house. It was while in Abaji, but still in handcuff and in the midst of fierce-looking contingent of armed police men, that a disturbance by a mob created the setting for him to escape.

This account, which has so far not been denied by the police or the authorities, is troubling for many reasons. Boko Haram is easily one of the groups, if not the main group, right now creating much of the security challenge plaguing the nation. If the security forces manage to track down a man belonging to that organisation and one with such a high profile as Kabiru has been said to be, how come he was ‘allowed’ to escape just like that, many ask in great wonderment. Is it is a mere case of carelessness on the part of the police guarding him or is it a more sinister one of someone somewhere trying a convenient cover-up?

The slip-shod handling of the Kabiru affair in Abaji is certainly bound to generate some furore. Already some commentators have started angrily interrogating the incident wondering if a game is not being played to score some obscure political objectives. Many cannot simply understand why a jackal or a lion trapped has been allowed out of the lair of the State again to continue to torment already harassed souls. The escape of Kabiru is bound to throw some otherwise composed persons into panic and raise fear and anxiety among many persons.

In our peculiar circumstances in which our political elite play endless and dangerous politics even at the expense of lives and reputations and even long after elections have been won and lost and when they ought to squarely face the business of development, the escape of a man who would have helped to shed light on the mysterious sect as well as settle the dangerous insinuations gaining grounds now, is truly unfortunate.

The whole incident of the Kabiru arrest and escape is providing a good ground for recrimination between the Federal Government and the Borno State Government. From the statements that have emanated from the Borno State Government since the incident broke, the Government is very suspicious about what it perceives as the attempt by the Federal Government to insinuate that the Borno State Government is possibly complicit in the violent activities of the Boko Haram sect.  It is unhappy that the arrest of Kabiru in its Governor’s Lodge in Abuja is made to appear as if the Government of Borno is offering its Lodge as a safe haven for the sect’s operatives to lie low and possibly plan and strike at targets in Abuja or environs.

One can understand why the Borno government should be angry at any impression being given that it is possibly in cahoots with the extremist sect. In an emotion-laden release, the government said that the party under whose platform it came to power (the A.N.P.P) has been an unfortunate victim of Boko Haram so it is inconceivable that it will in any way be supportive of its activities. It gave a long list of many of the party’s top members in Borno who have been mowed down by the sect. It is common knowledge that Boko Haram have sworn that their public enemy number one and target is former Borno Governor Ali Modu Sherriff, which is why his successor, Governor Kashim Shettima, is said to be terribly shaken by the whole incident because he believes that he was the target of that Boko Haram operative’s breach of the security of the Borno Governor’s Lodge where he stays whenever he is in Abuja.

Many see Shettima as a close political associate of the former governor and for Boko Haram if they cannot reach the main target, anyone who looks like his surrogate will be a good enough target. It is unfortunate that Kabiru is not now available to help clear some doubts and suspicions that have arisen in the wake of the state of insecurity that has enveloped the country.

For instance, some Nigerians, especially in the northern half of the country, hold the sneaky feeling that the incidences of bombings often attributed to the Boko Haram may not all be their handiwork. The Federal Government has come under suspicion that the bombings are being orchestrated by elements in the security services to create a climate of fear and insecurity in order to attain some political objective that no one has quite been able to convincingly tell some of us of. Can we now see why the escape of Kabiru is such a painful thing?  If he were around, he would have helped to clear away the doubts and suspicions about his whole arrest. Some theorise that he was trailed and picked up in the Borno Governor’s Lodge in order to create the impression that the state government is possibly sympathetic to, if not supportive of, the sect.
Well, what is happening is hardly surprising. In a place where people are held hostage by lack of safety or are dwelling under a cloud of insecurity, conspiracy theories, wild or real claims of acts of sabotage or dirty tricks will naturally abound, further hurting relationships and making people live in further fear and suspicion.

I am concerned and feel particularly pained by the situation in Borno because I regard Borno as a second home: I did my National Youth Service Corps Scheme in Maiduguri in 1982. I often say it, and my wife agrees with me, that that was one of the best times of my life or of our lives. I have some friends from Borno who keep asking me why my ‘’brother’’ (President Goodluck Jonathan) has not though it fit to visit Borno ever since the state became the hotbed of the Boko Haram’s low-intensity insurgency against the country. Does he perhaps hold the state and the people guilty for the Boko Haram activities, they ask? They wonder why the President has visited Jos, the police headquarters in Abuja and the scene of the December 24 attack in Madalla and other places in the country where disasters have struck but he has conspicuously neglected Borno, my Borno, which has been the epicentre of the most devastating calamity to ever visit this country-bombing.

I have told all those friends that one day soon (and that day is the blessed day of today) I will tell my ‘brother’ to visit Borno because his failure to do so is being misinterpreted to mean that he holds some unknown animus against the Government and the good people of Borno. Some say, for example, that it could be because the state is being run by an opposition party and that the ruling party of the President’s has an eye to wrestle it from its rival by any means possible.

Given the doubts and insinuations that have been expressed concerning the Kabiru Sokoto escape affair, the security agencies have an urgent task on their hands: they must investigate and thoroughly lay bare all the facts relating to this high-ranking suspect who escaped in very suspicious circumstances in order to restore our faith and confidence that Boko Haram is not a phantom created by some sinister elements in order to give them room to destabilise our country.