Haba! Gov Kwankwaso …That Defence Of Boko Haram Suspects

At a time, when, not only well-meaning Nigerians, but all of humanity and the global community in particular, have been grieving over a very dangerous trend; the wanton destruction of human and material resources at peacetime, through terrorist attacks, Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s call to release suspects is suspect.

Since the attack on the United Nations House in Abuja, Nigeria, by a suicide bomber, in which 23 people, among them Nigerians, were confirmed killed, various religious and political leaders have empathised with the casualties and the nation, in words and deeds.

Among many others, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar 111, last Tuesday condemned the bombing of the UN House, penultimate Friday, describing it as an abominable act in Islam, “especially in the month of Ramadan”, and called on Muslims to improve their relations with non-muslims in the country.

In his Sallah Message to the Muslim Ummah at the occasion of Eid el-Fitri celebration in his palace in Sokoto, the monarch charged all those involved in “this nefarious act” to “fear God and desist from committing this grievous act,” and in the same vain urged Muslims to uphold the true tenets and cause of their religion, as only that would deter the followers of other religions from considering them all as terrorists.

More importantly, the Sultan commiserated with the families of those who lost their lives in the explosion in Abuja and those of the renewed killings in Jos and urged the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, investigate the incident and bring the culprits to book in order to prevent future occurrences.

Perhaps, only perhaps, if highly-placed public officers like the Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso had not been too hasty in 2007 as they are today in calling for the release of suspects, perhaps, just perhaps, the UN House would have been spared and the 23 human lives saved.

Unfortunately, that would amount to crying over spilled milk. This is because, the man now declared wanted in connection with the UN bombing had been arrested and released as far back as 2007, Associate Press (AP) revealed, last Thursday, quoting ‘high level’ security sources.

The suspect, Mamman Nur said to be the mastermind, was last Wednesday declared wanted by the State Security Service (SSS) which also released photographs of two other suspects in custody.

According to the AP expose, top security officials in the administration of the President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua “released the rounded-up Boko Haram members, shortly after their arrests, with some facing a few hasty sham trials.

“One of those men was Babagana Ismail Kwaljima, alias Abu Summaya, who was arrested again days before the August 26 bombing at the UN House,” AP quoted the top security official as saying, “Kwaljima is accused of helping mastermind the UN bombing. A second man, Babagana Mali, was also arrested while, Police are looking for Nur with “al Qaeda links” who recently traveled to Somalia, where al-Qaeda-linked group called al-Shabbaab is battling the UN-backed government”.

The men, the AP report further said, had allegedly been caught with explosives. “Their rapid release from detention was apparently aimed at placating religious groups, but it has now come back to haunt security officials who fear a growing wave of al-Qaeda-linked terror attacks in the country.

Strangely, the AP report further revealed that some of those arrested in October 2007, were even plotting to carry out attacks on the United States and also American targets in Nigeria.

Already, Boko Haram has accepted responsibility for the August 26, UN House bombing in which 81 persons were wounded, some of them critically. Miraculously, the car used in the UN House attack was registered in the same area of Kano State, where, the terror suspects had been arrested only four years earlier, the AP report stated.

Today, Kwankwaso has in same hasty-manner started the call to release terror suspects from detention, in hope that may be, just may be, he could actualise a reharsh of the 2007 hushed discharges.

Specifically, the governor asked security agencies to release members of the Yusufiyya Movement popularly or notoriously known as Boko Haram, along with other members of religious groups who are currently in detention.

Kwankwaso disclosed this in his office last Tuesday in Kano, after granting unconditional pardon to 20 prisoners in the state who loyalties now deserve some probing. However, he maintained that there was no justification for the continued detention of members of religious sect since they have not been adjudged guilty by any law court. And to further re-assure the Boko Haram, of his loyalty and undying friendship, he went the extra mile to fault news reports stating the arrest of Boko Haram sect members, at the instance of the state government, and vowed, “at no time did the state government ever authorise any security agency to arrest or detain any member of any religious sect.

What this clearly shows is a State Governor who could not, is not and may never be depended upon to investigate, arrest and charge to court any member of the Boko Haram sect, in spite of the looming facts that point to Kano, as the first shop of test. This, for a chief security officer of a state within the Nigerian Federation is most worrisome.

Yes, Boko Haram members may be Muslims, but do their activities, of senseless killings and destruction of property, at peace time, reflect the true tenets of Islam? Do they reflect the true nature of Allah-love, which Islam preaches or do they attract friends to the religion or enemies who are today forced to generalise that muslims are all violent?

Kwankwaso must not have listened to the Sultan of Sokoto, the undisputed head of the Supreme Islamic Council, but if he did, he is merely being more Islamic than the Sultan. Or could it be a veiled submission to the self-protectionist theory of courting the love of one’s assailants to live longer, at the risk of others’ lives?

Kwankwaso might think he enjoys the friendship of the extremist Islamic sect. His, is instead that of living in a fools’ paradise, an illusion of grandeur which, in the long run, makes a regret one too late. Intrinsically, bombs thrown in a market place spares none, Muslims and Christians alike. If Kwankwaso and his family never make it to the market or any other public place, one, at least one, close to him does or could some day.

That is why it is most condemnable that a governor in today’s Nigeria should be more keen on freeing self-confessed members of a terror group, the Boko Haram sect, which has claimed responsibility for mass murders, especially, the UN House bombing in which 23 innocent lives were lost, and not proffer ways of apprehending suspects in his state, still at large.

The frightened governor methinks deserves our sympathy and understanding because he requires the friendship of the Boko Haram sect not just to serve out his term as governor but to live and enjoy the spoils of his political voyage ever after.

In the circumstance, the only plausible option left is to help ease him out of power, accept his salient choice as enemy of Nigeria and friend to mass murderers, for Kwankwaso has the right to such choice.

Or does Kwankwaso also enjoy the support of several others of his ilk who are also battling with a similar choice to make? I ask because I am yet to read of anyone condemning his stand.

It is tempting however, to see kwankwaso’s position as a way of insisting on the respect for the rule of law and appeal to the acquisitorial process of prosecution, in which an accused is presumed innocent unless and until proven otherwise as against the inquisitorial model which demands the direct opposite.

In that case therefore, it might be Kwankwaso’s position that unless the Boko Haram sect members are properly charged and convicted, they should be released quickly, as was done in 2007. He may be right but does it not bother the governor that in times of war, like the country’s war against terrorism some of these rights could be sacrificed for society to know peace? Without arrest, detention and systemic interrogation, whence would the facts emerge for the kind of prosecution to put the supposedly evil men away?

But wait! Should it be the duty of a serving governor to demand the release of suspected dangerous felons or their legal counsels?

My Agony is that acts of commission or omission of some Northern elite like Kwankwaso, Adamu Ciroma and their cohorts, are giving weight to calls by some aggrieved youths that the predicted break-up of the Nigerian state along North-South lines by 2015, be earlier than then. This negates the Go-On-With-One-Nigeria (GOWON) proclamation, after the 1967 bloody Nigerian civil war, and shouldn’t be.

Or should it now be accepted as a routine that any time a section of the federation does not grab political power or at least have in office a chosen stooge, Nigeria must remain ungovernable?

The President and Commander-In-Chief, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan must declare now, not later, a full war against terror and expose more backers and sponsors of Boko Haram.