[Opinion] Boko Haram: My Undisputed Man Of The Year 2012 By Emeka Anumbor

President Jonathan told a startled nation on January 8, 2012 that the Islamist mass murderers had penetrated all arms of government. In the past, Nigeria was assailed by Islamist purists like Maitashine and Ibrahim El-Zakzaky whose Jihadist zealotry brought about the Bulunkutu religious disturbances and riots in Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Yola, Maiduguri, Zaria and other northern cities. The Kala Kato was a radical, anti-establishment, anti-western Islamic sect that laid siege on Bauchi town on January 2010. Over 70 people died in the sect’s confrontation with security agents, including the leader of the insurgents, Mallam Badamosi. Properties worth millions of naira were lost in the uprising. However, Boko Haram stands heads and shoulders about its fellow crusaders. The brinksmanship of its former Director of Public Communication, Abu Qaqa who was arrested in Kaduna State on February 2, 2012 by the department of state security revealed the infancy of President Jonathan’s press handlers. A terrorist imprimatur, Qaqa is gifted with admirable P. R. skills that dwarfed the presidential press corps. The boast by security agents that his arrest will sink the sect has gone up in smoke! If Dr Taofeeq Abdulazeez, a lecturer in the department of English and Literary Studies at the University of Abuja is correct, the government actually midwifed Boko Haram! According to the university teacher who is also the Chief Imam of the UNIABUJA mosque, “essentially, Boko Haram is a creation of government; it is an Islamic movement that has been hijacked by politicians and other powerful elements in the society for the purpose of destabilizing this nation.” By what looks like capitulation and appeasement, the government of President Jonathan has quietly negotiated away our sovereignty to the Islamists. On February 8, 2012, the Nigerian Television Authority aired a tape during its Network News programme where some masked men asked for dialogue with the federal government and named five northerners to represent it. While the government doubted the authenticity of the tape and the voices in it, Minister of Information Labaran Maku was eager and begging for dialogue: “But whatever grievances that they have, the mere fact that they have grievances and they have taken to violence presupposes that we should listen to them.” The minister said that government will engage “every form of channel of communication with Boko Haram that could lead to dialogue. The government is clear, we are ready for dialogue, already the President had said so.” A clearly terrified President Goodluck Jonathan favours dialogue conditionally: “If they clearly identify themselves now and say this is the reason why we are resisting, this is the reason why we destroy lives of some innocent people and their property … then there will be a basis for dialogue.” As soon as he took office, the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Ibrahim Dasuki visited some of the states castrated by the Jihadist onslaught. According to his press release, the “cogent message in all the meetings he has held so far with some stakeholders is the need for leaders to reach out and prevail on Boko Haram members to cease fire as to create room for dialogue.” The Minister of State for Defense, Mrs Olusola Obada said the federal government is for dialogue. Even HRM Sultan Abubakar, the head of Nigeria’s Muslims and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal offered themselves as talk mediators! But in Bayelsa State birthplace of President Jonathan on December 6, 2012, his Special Adviser on Research, Documentation and Strategy, Mr. Oronto Douglas lampooned any proposal for dialogue with the sect. Though the approach of the fanatical Muslim sect is to play hide and seek on dialogue, its dual methodology of bomb/kill and ask for talks has put the federal government which lacks a clearly defined dual strategy of containment and dialogue on the defensive. FOR SKILLFULLY PORTRAYING THE TRANSFORMATION AGENDA OF THE PDP FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION AS A COMEDY OF ERRORS, IN RECOGNITION OF BOKO HARAM’S HUGELY SUCCESSFUL BLUFF AND PUFF POSTURE AGAINST PRESIDENT JONATHAN’S TIMID GOVERNMENT, THE JIHADIST GROUP IS MY PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012!

The killer brigade has wonderfully, but unfortunately portrayed the government of President Jonathan as a feeble puppetry. It has not been able to defeat the insurgents by an all-encompassing espionage, frontal military engagement and financial intelligence. It has no expertise to trace, track and cripple their funding capacity and financial sponsors. In the view of Dr Samuel Kugiyat, Northern Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, “the onslaught and killing of Christians with impunity by Boko Haram is certainly a national disgrace.” In the North, education is a casualty of the rampaging Boko Haram gunners and bombers. A co-participant with this correspondent at Fidelity Bank Plc’s 2010 International Writing Workshop who is now at the University of Maiduguri, in the Borno State capital paints a picture of a campus on total siege and silence. The brazen murder of over 40 students of Mubi Polytechnic, Adamawa State in 2012 has not cooled frayed nerves. Churches in university campuses in the North have been bombed and worshippers killed. The National Executive Council of the Association of Primary School Head Teachers met in Abuja in July 2012, and its president, Lawal Mahmud cried himself hoarse: “We want the Federal Government to take proactive steps concerning this insecurity threat because it’s already telling on the educational well-being of the country. Our pupils no longer feel safe in their learning environment.” Unfortunately, Mahmud’s appeal fell on the ears of a deaf federal administration whose officials don’t send their children to Nigerian primary schools! The hugely embarrassing activities of the sect openly caused President Jonathan public weeping, speech impediment, incoherence and a suspected incontinence. The dexterity of Boko Haram mocks the skill of the Nigeria Police and threw open the putrid decay in the department of state security. The efficiency and fire power of the Islamists has impoverished the entire North even as its action has polarized the nation, earning us bad press worldwide. Its economic and international warfare has made federal and state revenues to nosedive and caused Nigeria to yield its former diplomatic hob in West Africa to Ghana. The sect’s administrative skill and long reach evidences its capacity to mount multiple attacks simultaneously. The way and manner it attacked prisons and freed their members show first class intelligence. The acuity of its leadership many of whom received good western education can be gauged from its propaganda successes in attributing their insurrection to poverty and deprivation which bad leadership in the North and decades of northern dominated federal misrule brought about in the first place. Apologists of the Jihadists blame the 13 per cent of shareable revenues to oil producing states on the basis of derivation as the tonic of the insurgency. The garrulous, Islamist Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi told the Financial Times of London on January 27, 2012: “There is clearly a direct link between the uneven nature of distribution of resources and the rising level of violence. When you look at the figures {revenue allocation to states} and look at the size of the population in the north you can see there is a structural imbalance of enormous proportions.” But Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State isn’t convinced: “If every poor man in this country decides to become a suicide bomber, Nigeria definitely would not exist. Some have said that it is unemployment. Again, if everybody who is not employed in this country decides to turn into suicide bombers, who will be left?” In the views of the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Mr Johnnie Carson, “the threat from Boko Haram grows as Nigeria’s standard of living declines.” Promptly, the CAN President Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor educated the US government about the volatile vision and destructive mission of the Jihadists. Reiterating that the North which held sway for a greater part of Nigeria’s history is livid for losing power, the cleric maintained: “We reject the reason being peddled by the American government and some Boko Haram apologists in the North that poverty and injustice are the spark for the sect’s members action.” The clergyman has a supporter in the late Middle Belt born Major Gideon Orkar who declared in his botched coup of April 1990 that the core North which he foolishly and emotionally excised too early and too rashly from the federation, saw the South as its rightful “colony.” From the beginning, Boko Haram successfully employed patronage and propaganda in its war with the Nigerian state. Professor Jerry Gana, a prominent northern elemental power, CAN elder and information minister in the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo twice stood bail for the late Boko Haram founder, Mohammed Yusuf. In 2009, ex-governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff had a private talk with Yusuf in their native Kanuri language in a police cell before his judicial murder by the police. In October 2012, the Borno Elders Forum shrilly called for the disbandment of the JTF for alleged human rights violations. A renowned western news agency even aired a video showing the JTF killing civilians. Despite the denial of the defense authorities, it caused a great outcry from international human rights groups. Later, the western news agency owned up that it was a fabrication. At least two northern state governors have been publicly named as sponsors and patrons of the Jihadists. Clearly, the controlling body of northern Muslims, the Jama’atu Nasril Islam is subtly and silently behind the group. After a 3-day retreat in Kaduna in August 2012, its Secretary-General Dr Khalid Aliyu issued a caustic communiqué that frowned “on so many contradictions and confusion in the way the issue of Boko Haram is handled by security agents and the media.” It lied that “especially the Christian dominated southern media have always demonstrated bias against Islam and Muslims.” In a statement allegedly made in aNigerian Television Authority {NTA} programme shown on August 15, 2012, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr Nurudeen Mohammed called Nigeria “an Islamic country with the largest Christian population.” After the President of theChristian Association of Nigeria {CAN}, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor took exemption to that false categorization, Dr Mohammed hurried to make corrections. What he claimed to have said at a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation {OIC} in Saudi Arabia was that Nigeria remains “the largest Islamo-Christian country in the world.” FOR DEFILING, DISDAINING, DEFEATING AND DISGRACING CONVENTIONAL WISDOM AND THE RULE OF LAW, FOR ITS PROPAGANDA ABILITY AND ACUITY, BOKO HARAM IS MY PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012!

Ominously, Boko Haram graduated from using bows, arrows, dane guns and machetes in 2002 to Improvised Explosive Devices by 2010. Now, they are in the market for the latest military armaments such as rocket launchers that propel missiles or explosives from long ranges and rocket propelled grenades, which are explosive projectile weapons employed to attack or destroy targets from long distances. This lethal elevation has increased tempers and temperature in the presidency, the Ministry of Defense, northern governor’s offices, the offices of the Chief of Defense Staff and the Inspector General of Police. Police spokesman Mr. Frank Mba termed it as a “worrisome development.” The state security service is justifiably worried. Nigeria’s over 400 km land border of which some are mountainous, over 800 km ocean border and hundreds of illegal routes does not make their job easier. In June 2012, the American government designated three Boko Haram leaders as global terrorists. The Jihadist insurgents have working agreement with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb which has been refitting it with lethal weaponry. On April 5, 2012, security operatives swooped on a cache of 51 rocket launchers in a residence at Barunde, Gombe. “Apart from the rocket launchers, 48 bags of fertilizers, sulphuric acid and cortex items were recovered. Other items recovered were detonators, remore control devices, different types of chemicals, six containers for preparation of IEDs and other items,” according to Borno State SSS director, Bitrus Asha. On July 30, 2012, the military Joint Task Force recovered 10 RPGs and other advanced arms at the Nigeria-Chad border. 8 rocket launchers, 10 rocket bombs, 10 rocket chargers, 2 AK 47 rifles and 13 magazines were intercepted by the JTF in Maiduguri a day later. In Apapa, Lagos, security operatives October 2012 intercepted 13 containers carrying rocket launchers, cartridges, hand grenades and other weapons of mass destruction. The police wailed that “we don’t have the sophistication to manufacture these war weapons. Iran, Yemen, Syria, Libya and others are suppliers.” In response, the Nigeria Police is forced to sign security pacts with some ECOWAS nations and co-opt international support from Interpol. The Inspector General of Niger Republic came to dialogue with Nigeria’s police chief, Mohammed Abubakar in August 2012. On January 24, 2012, ECOWAS Foreign Ministers met in Nouakchott, Mauritania to confer on terrorism. While the meeting agreed to intensify efforts at curtailing terrorist groups like Boko Haram,Niger Republic’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Bazoum confirmed that the Nigerian Islamic sect receives training and weaponry from al-Qaeda’s Maghreb unit. The US Department of State Country Report on Terrorism 2011 said that Boko Harammurdered 590 people in 2011 alone. On July 31, 2012, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, USA, Daniel Benjamin credited Nigeria with 20 per cent of the 978 terrorist attacks that happened in Africa in 2011. In summary, the report deemed Boko Haram more deadly in 2011 than in the preceding year. UK Foreign Secretary William Hague was numbed by the scale and ferocity of Boko Haram’s January 20, 2012 night of long knives in Kano: “I am shocked and appalled by the large scale terrorist attacks in Kano, Nigeria yesterday. The nature of these attacks has sickened people around the world.”The terrorists and the JTF battled again in Maiduguri in the first week of December 2012. Four Boko Haram sub-commanders who majored in manufacturing Improvised Explosive Devices{IEDs} and petrol bombs were killed in the dwell. A cache of arms and ammunition was recovered. According to the JTF spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, “all the recovered items were planned to be used by the terrorists for operation ‘Black Christmas’ aimed at disrupting a peaceful Christmas celebration in Borno State.” The Islamist’s ability to deplore bombs, firearms, explosives, and recruit suicide bombers points to effective liaison with international terrorist groups in West Africa and beyond. The dubious staying power and organizational ability of the fundamentalists can be seen in their continuing and committed warfare with the Nigerian state even after the death of its founder. FOR HUGELY HARRASSING ECOWAS GOVERNMENTS, FOR THESE DEATHLY STAMINA AND STATISTICS, FOR UNLEASHING BULK TERROR IN NIGERIA, BOKO HARAM IS MY PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012.

Certainly, the killer group is richer today than two years back. On October 26, 2012, the spokesman of the Joint Task Force, Lt. Col. Musa Sagir said in Maiduguri that the sect had switched to “threatening and extortions.” According to him, “the Boko Haram terrorists have desperately resorted to anonymous threat SMS messages and written notes to selected individuals including top government officials, politicians and traders, demanding for large sums of money to be used for certain purposes and building of mosques in Maiduguri.” On November 3, 2011, the department of state security personnel nabbed another spokesman of the group, Ali Sanda Umar Konduga, a.k.a. Usman al-Zawahiri. This terrorist fingered ex-governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff as the chief supporter of the sect. Sheriff even made a terrorist, the late Fuji Foi a commissioner. After Foi, Saidu Pindar, Nigeria’s one time envoy to Sao Tome and Principe became Boko Haram’s ATM. Like Foi, Pindar died in a motor accident on August 31, 2011, on his way to allegedly give the sect a reported N5 million. Kodunga said that Mohammed Ali Ndume, an ex-two term member of the House of Representatives and a serving senator became the sect’s financier after the passage of Pindar. A highly prized asset, Konduga was the terrorist’s chief press officer who wrote threat letters to Governors Babangida Aliyu and Sule Lamido of Niger and Jigawa states respectively, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mohamed Bello Adoke and the Chairman of Borno State Election Tribunal, Justice Sabo Adamu. Konduga confirmed that “the intention of the threat to the Chairman of the Borno State Election Tribunal was to ensure that he nullified the present administration of Governor Kashim Shettima.” State Security Service spokesman Marilyn Ogar is positive that Ndume’s arrest “further confirms the Service position that some of the Boko Haram extremists have political patronage and sponsorship.” So far, Shettima stays put as governor while Ndume remains a senator. It’s known that the senator representing Borno Central in the National Assembly, Ahmed Zanna gave Boko Haram N1.5 million for Sallah rams in 2012. This terrorist fund raising effort designed by the sect to help it run welfare and religious programs is an audacious PR move. Despite the resolve of the JTF that “whoever succumbs to these threats and extortions of money and other resources solicited by the Boko Haram would be uncovered, arrested and treated as an accomplice and financier of the Islamists terrorists’ sect in Borno State,” Ahmed Zanna who is still a free man in the Nigerian Senate, was accused by the Joint Task Force of sheltering a “high profile Boko Haram commander,”Shuaibu Mohammed Bama after the chief terrorist was arrested by the security outfit in his Damboa Area, Maiduguri house on October 19, 2012. Senator Zannah admitted that the terrorist was his cousin and a “bad character,” but denied that he was arrested in his house, a claim that the Director, Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Bola Koleosho called “ridiculous.”Zannah also distanced himself from being a sympathizer, financier or propagandist of the killer brigade. Sherrif who is credited in some knowledgeable quarters to be the godfather of Boko Haram called Zannah a “drowning man.” According to him, Zanna has “obvious involvement with Boko Haram given his past antecedence, where people fingered him as illegal importer of arms via his Hajj-by-road fame.” Sherrif who has answered two security service invitations about his links with the group blamed the People’s Democratic Party as “the engine room behind Boko Haram.” For Sheriff, this “widely believed theory” is confirmed by the fact that two senators of the ruling party have been named as alleged sponsors of the killer sect. Late 2011, the Joint Task Force and the department of state security arrested Senator Ali Ndume and put him on trial for being a Boko Haram sponsor. Till date, the case seems to have gone into voice mail. Qaqa said that Bauchi governor Isa Yuguda paid them protection money up to mid 2011 and allowed them to use Bauchi Mountain as training camps. Intelligence sources concede that the sect gets cash from criminal Jihadi elements in the Sahel and from al Qaeda’s Maghreb arm. The nihilist group also raises millions of naira via bank robbery. Against  the established police routine of undercover and sting operations of filtrating agents to expose and undermine terror, the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar publicly said that two senators and an ex-governor of Borno State were being watched to establish their culpability with Boko Haram. He justified this crass unprofessional etiquette on the fact that “we need evidence to build strong cases against them.”  Governor Babaginda Aliyu was distressed about a self confessed Boko Haram terrorist who was jailed three years for a “misdemeanor.” Aliyu warned that“if the country continues to treat acts of terrorism with kid gloves,” the prediction of an American agency that Nigeria will disintegrate by 2015 may come to pass. In 2011, Jeremiah Useni, a retired general and Chairman of All Nigeria People’s Party {ANPP} concluded that the separatists have local sponsors. FOR HAVING ROBUST UNDERGROUND TOXIC INCOME, FOR GENERATING MULTIPLE SOURCES OF FINANCING, BOKO HARAM IS MY PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012.

While northern governors wring their hands helplessly and the arch conservative Arewa Consultative Forum, the apex elemental power of the region paint a hapless and hopeless situation, Boko Haram expands its reach and relationships. Security experts link it to al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, AQIM and Somalia’s Al Shabaab terrorists. Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau even threatened Britain and the United States. To Kaduna based Islamic scholar Sheikh Ahmed Gumi, Boko Haram is not a problem. Rather, Gumi trained his blaming guns outside the shores of this country. According to the Islamic cleric, international American and European oil mafias “want to divide the Nigeria so that they will have control over the nation’s resources. They do not want Nigeria to become a strong nation.” Reuters December 2012 quoted a video posted on November 29, 2012 by SITE,  a US based organization in which Abubakar Shekau showed solidarity with fellow Islamic guerillas. In the 39 minutes video sent to many Jihadist fora, the bearded destroyer saluted comrades in “the Islamic state in Mali, our brothers and sheikhs in usurped Palestine.” The translated transcript quoted the maximum killer as advising that the world “should witness, and America, Britain, Nigeria and other crusaders, meaning America and Britain,  should witness, and the Jews of Israel who are killing the Muslims in Palestine should witness … that we are with our mujahideen brothers in the cause of Allah everywhere.” Shekau then warned: “O Britain, America, Israel and Nigeria: Don’t think that jihad stops with the death of imans. Because imams are individuals. Jihad started now, jihad started now, O enemies of Allah.” It seems to this correspondent that this Jihadist horde will be around for a long time! A sensual dimension, an additional elixir is now beginning to help us understand the modus operandi of the Islamic fundamentalists. We now have a firm idea why Jihadists accept death willingly, why northern Nigeria has become a cauldron of destruction. Militants sent on suicide missions by the incendiary sect are promised 72 luscious virgins in their hellish heaven according to revelations from the trial of four Boko Haram suicide bombers. At the Abuja High Court trial of Salisu Ahmed, Umar Babagana-Umar, Mohammed Ali and Musa Adam who were arrested on July 28, 2011 at Gumel Junction, Kachia, Kaduna State, an army officer said in his evidence-in-chief that cell phones seized from the virulent Jihadists yielded this information. The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, has it that the first message from Boko Haram leadership to the bombers read: “Do a deed which Allah by his grace and mercy saves you from the punishment of the grave and a dangerous bridge with a speed of light. Save you from the greatest fear. Allow you save from hell fire. 70 members of your family shall marry you 72 virgins in paradise, gives you a crown of respect, which even the prophet will be impressed with. Keep your soul in the green birds of paradise and your wish to return to the world and die as he died because of the good blessings and reward you encounter after such noble last deed. I pray for you to do such a noble deed.” On this application of erotic content to mass murdering militancy, the Jihadists are entirely in tandem with what their leadership commanded. Under the headline: “What Prophet Muhammad said about Paradise,” the December 14, 2012 issue of Daily Sun newspaper, page 53 tells us: “The Shaheed will marry 72 women of Paradise” – {Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah};“the tents are a hollowed out pearl, sixty miles high, in each corner of it the believer will have a wife whom no one else can see” – {Bukhari}; “the women of Paradise will sing for their husbands in the most beautiful voices that anyone has ever heard” –  {Tabarani}. Unfortunately, the gallant officers and men of the Nigeria Police, the armed forces and the security services who battle the Islamic insurgents don’t have the good luck of being promised 72 luscious virgins in heaven by the federal government of President Jonathan for dying in defense of their fatherland! I especially doff my hat for the devoted Muslims who have so far resisted the lure of dumping the services of the Nigerian government for the allure of 72 luminous virgins and rivers of endless wines offered by Boko Haram in their afterlife. FOR HAVING THE CARNAL WISDOM TO EMPLOY AND IMPLODE THE SENSUAL, BUT LETHAL ARSENAL OF THOUSANDS OF LUSCIOUS VIRGINS {THE ULTIMATE LAP TOPS!} TO POWER HUNDREDS OF ZEALOUS ISLAMIC IRREDENTISTS IN THEIR JIHAD, FOR SHOWING US THE CONVERGENCE BETWEEN JIHADIST MILITANCY AND PLAY BOY MAGAZINE SENSUALITY, BOKO HARAM IS MY PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012!

Boko Haram has successfully and fearfully mercenarized Islamic violence in West Africa and rubbished the reputation of the Nigerian armed forces. It has caused embarrassing security lapses, leadership flaws and questionable escape of captured terrorists while in police custody that brought about the inglorious retirement and dismissal of many security functionaries of the state like the National Security Adviser, General Andrew Owoye Azazi who was fired in June 2012 and replaced with Col. Sambo Ibrahim Dasuki. In 2011, Brigadier Muraina Raji, the Commander of the 33 Artillery Brigade, Bauchi, was tried, discharged and acquitted of all three charges against him by a special military court at the 3 Armoured Division, Jos, for his alleged role in the escape of two fearsome Boko Haram commanders from the military. Barely 12 hours after his arrest at the Borno State Government Lodge, Asokoro, Abuja where he was cooling off, Kabiru Abubakar Dikko, alias Kabiru Sokoto, who master minded the December 25, 2011, bombing of St. Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State, escaped in handcuffs from ten policemen at Abaji on January 15, 2012. Though a N50 million bounty was placed on him by the past Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim before his re-arrest 26 days later in Mutum-Biu, Gassol LGA, Taraba State, the public outcry was not enough to stop the retirement of the Inspector General and six of his top aides. Assistant Commissioner of Police Zakari Biu and the five troopers with him who were escorting Sokoto for a search of his Abaji residence before they were allegedly attacked by some youths faced the Force Disciplinary Committee for trial. A highly prize terrorist strategist whose destructive work at St. Theresa took 44 lives including 26 parishioners, the department of state security said that “Kabiru was instrumental to the visit of the late National Leader of the Boko Haram sect, Mohammed Yusuf to Gagi village in February 2009, during which he was declared the leader of the sect in Sokoto State.” On February 7, 2012, the sect traded tackles with military formations in Kaduna including the headquarters of 1 Division of the Nigerian Army and the Air Force Base. The army division’s assistant director of public relations, Lt. Col. Abubakar Edun credited two suicide bombers with the 12.18pm explosive confrontation which he labeled a “failed suicide attack.” The official army release said that “the two bombers suicide came in two vehicles, a Sienna Toyota space bus and a Honda Accord. The drivers of the two vehicles overran the security post and the lawn leading to the Headquarters  Complex. One of the vehicles {Toyota Sienna space bus} exploded by the car park directly in front of the headquarters when a soldier opened fire on the car after the attacker refused to stop which made him lose control of the vehicle. The second vehicle which did not explode {Honda Accord} was loaded with 10 numbers of 20 litres of Improvised Explosive Devices, 4 number of 30 litres containers loaded with IEDs and 2 numbers of large peak containers also loaded with IEDs.” One bomber died while the military sustained 17 deaths and many wounded.  On November 29, 2012, a joint police and department of state security search operation of a 2-bedroom Boko Haram bomb factory at Kwanar Shahada, Jushin Ciki, Zaria City, Kaduna State yielded copious weapons of mass destruction. According to the Assistant Army Public Relations Officer, 1st Division of the Nigeria Army, Kaduna, Col Sami Usman, “improvised explosive devises, IEDs, in stage one state of readiness and several IED making components were also recovered. Other weapons recovered include 17 sensor mechanical timers, remore control, 11 primed suicide bomber’s vests, 36 primed IEDs in Bobo cans and one military kitbag with support items like swa, hammer, cello tapes and gums. Others are two gallons of paint containing prepared IEDs, two gallons of Turkey oil brand with prepared IEDs, seven rolls of wires of various lengths and one bag containing several sensors as well as 25 {nine volts} batteries.” The seriousness and frequency of the threat at hand can be gauged from the fact that “this is the fourth of such successes in the past three months after the initial one in same Zaria, Rigassa and in Kaduna main town.” In November 2012, St. Andrew’s Protestant Church at the venerable Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, Kaduna was bombed by the daring Islamic terrorists. The death toll was put at 18 souls. Following the huge outcry that trailed the security lapses at the college, the Chief of Defense Staff Admiral Ola Ibrahim sacked its commandant, Air Vice Marshall I. A. Kure. The Commander of the Infantry Corp, Major General M. D. Isah was also relieved of his post. Militarily, there’s no city like Kaduna in Nigeria. Home to the One Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army, the nation’s first army brigade, Kaduna hosts a plethora of military units namely: Nigeria Defence Academic, Nigeria Military School, 1 Division headquarters of Nigeria Army, Counter Terrorism Training Centre, Command and Staff College, Warrant Officer’s Academy, Nigeria Army Depot, Nigeria Army School of Military Police, Infantry Corps Centre, Nigeria Army Peacekeeping Centre, Nigeria Navy Flagship House, Nigeria Air Force Training Command and Nigeria Air Force Training Schools. For SUCCESSFULLY RUNNING ITS MURDEROUS JIHAD WITH LETHAL WEAPONRY, FOR BOLDLY LOCKING HORNS WITH THE NIGERIA MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT IN ITS TRADITIONAL POWER BASE, FOR DISGRACING THE FEARED AND PROVERBIAL KADUNA MAFIA, I bow FOR BOKO HARAM! THIS IS WHY THIS ISLAMIC ULTRA VIOLENT GROUP IS MY PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012!

Throughout 2012, hardly a week passed by without report of bomb blasts in northern Nigeria. Going to church in the north became a death trap, a double edged sword. Niger State saw its first bomb blast in March 2012 at the People’s Democratic Party’s zonal campaign rally in Suleija, its commercial capital. Another blast happened at the Suleija offices of the Independent Electoral Commission with loss of seven persons including serving youth corps members. A property belonging to former military maximum dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida was allegedly razed. The Nigerian press which the conservative northern Muslim establishment vilifies as “southern, Christian and anti-north” took a direct hit in 2012 when Thisday and Sun newspapers offices in Abuja and Kaduna were bombed. The headquarters of the Nigeria Police, Abuja, the headquarters of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Abuja and various army formations in the capital city have been bombed and attacked. As no respecter of the international community, Boko Haram leveled the UN House, Abuja in 2012 with the loss of many lives. The resultant diplomatic, trade, political and economic damages will take Nigeria many years to recover. Ghana’s Kotoko International Airport is now West Africa’s regional hub for long-distance flights worldwide. Murtala International Airport, Lagos, formerly held that honour. In August 2012, the Tudun Wada, Kaduna residence of Nigeria’s vice president Namadi Sambo came under gun attacks during which a cobbler died and two police men sustained injuries. St Rita’s Catholic Church, Ungwan Yero, Malali, Kaduna State was bombed on October 28, 2012 as the parish priest was blessing the sacrament. A Honda CRV SUV rammed into the church fence at about 8.30 am when the Boko Haram terrorist was prevented from driving into the church. Eight worshippers died and over 100 people including the parish priest, Rev. Father Bonny Baza sustained various degrees of injuries. But the PRO of the National Emergency Management Agency NEMA, Yushau Shuaib affirmed that the figures were inconclusive. Seven deaths were recorded from reprisal attacks that followed the blasts despite the appeal of the Archbishop of the Kaduna Catholic Diocese, Bishop Matthew Man’oso Ndagoso. As the nation’s chief mourner, President Jonathan through his media spokesman Dr Reuben Abati put on his sympathy robe and called the explosions “barbaric, cruel and uncalled for.”Before this attack, Boko Haram had taken credit for three attacks on churches in Kaduna. The DPO of a Potiskum police station died when the Islamic hardliners bombed the Yobe State capital December 9, 2012. A branch of a prominent commercial bank was burnt. Three terrorists died in the attack. These bombings, killings, maiming, destabilization and destructions have turned the northern part of Nigeria into mini Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Leaked comments from state security operatives indicate that some prominent personalities it arrested for being linked with the extremists were ordered to be released by the federal government. The extremists even managed to fool the United States government despite its openly avowed intention to establish the strictest form of Islamic theocracy. FOR ITS WIDE REACH AMONG NORTHERN NIGERIA’S FEUDAL, ISLAMIC OLIGARCHY THAT GIVES IT POLITICAL PROTECTION DESPITE DAMNING EVIDENCES AGAINST MANY OF ITS COLLABORATORS, FOR ITS DEFT PROPAGANDA METHODS OF USING THE MEDIA, BORNO ELDERS AND LEADERS, BOKO HARAM IS MY PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012.

President Jonathan’s admission that Boko Haram has infiltrated every level of government, the civil service, the armed forces and the general populace attests that the Jihadist extremists are now the masters and movers of officialdom. The masked killers are the new kids on the block! The beleaguered president was specific that “some of them are the executive arm of government, some of them are in the parliamentary/legislative arm of government while some of them are even in the judiciary. Some are also in the armed forces, the police and security agencies. Some continue to dip their hands and eat with you and you won’t even know the person who will point a gun at you or plant a bomb behind your house.” The stars and fortunes of an organization that he and some senior government officials had termed “faceless” never rose brighter. This presidential recognition of the ubiquity of Boko Haram officially stamped their ascendancy to power! One of Nigeria’s most notable constitutional scholars, Professor Itse Sagay wants President Jonathan’s morbid government to enlist foreign intervention because it cannot defeat the Jihadists. At the height of Boko Haram’s military efficiency, a terrified federal government was consequently reduced to a mantra of “please come out publicly for us to dialogue” since its interventionist security and military measures couldn’t put the sect out of operation. On January 28, 2012, the Guardian of London reported the threat of Boko Haram’s energetic spokesman, Abu Qaqa: “We will consider negotiations only when we have brought the government to its knees. Once we see that things are being done according to the dictates of Allah, and our members are released [from prison}, we will only put aside our arms – but we will not lay them down. You don’t put down your arms in Islam, you only put them aside.” Explaining that Sharia rule is their ultimate aim, Qaqa affirmed again: “There are no exceptions. Even if you are a Muslim and you don’t abide by Sharia, we will kill you. Even if you are my own father, we will kill you.” During a two-day visit to Makurdi, Benue State on March 9, 2012, Jonathan begged the fundamentalists to lay down their lethal arms. At the same time, some presidential staff at various fora delighted in engaging in dubious double deception of simultaneously sanctioning and disparaging dialogue. At a seminar dinner of the Alumni Association of the Nigerian Defence College, the Chief of Army Staff Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika poured cold water on negotiations. “Those who try to justify acts of terrorism inadvertently support terrorists. And some do so only to discover later that terrorism is not a matter to be negotiated and won.” One of Nigeria’s greatest constitutional scholars, Professor Itse Sagay wants foreign intervention because “It is obvious that the government is incompetent to tackle the Boko Haram because it does not have the knowledge, experience, expertise, equipment and technology to work with. The US, on the hand, has all these and is a better organized system.” An analyst at the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy, West Point, Jacob Zenn in a publication on October 2011, predicted that “the insurgency is likely to become more diverse and complex over time, which will limit the efficacy of negotiations.” However, press reports emerged early December 2012 that the federal government and Boko Haram had began tentative talks in Senegal. The Minister of Niger Delta and a member of President Jonathan’s inner circle, Mr. Godsay Orubebe led the federal government delegation while the extremists were represented by some of its senior commanders. The governments of Senegal and Mali facilitated the talks. Dr Junaid Mohammed, a Boko Haram sympathizer, scourge of the Jonathan presidency, trenchant hater of southern Nigeria and Convener of Coalition of Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen confirmed it. According to the noted northern irredentist, “yes, it is true. The minister travelled to Senegal where on prior arrangement with Senegalese and Malian security services, met some of Boko Haram leaders.” Rafiu Balogun, the leader of the Nigeria Bar Association, Ilorin rejoiced that “it is a good development because our government has demonstrated lack of capacity or will to deal with the issue of Boko Haram. Day in day out, the Boko Haram is becoming daring and the best thing to do in the circumstance is to dialogue with them at least to abate the carnage and wanton destruction of properties.” Ex-military president, General Ibrahim Babangida told the BBC Hausa service that “Nigeria and its various ethnic and religious groups cannot afford a second civil war. The continued threats of the sect on the cities and towns of the North and the loss of lives and property could only be prevented through dialogue and the federal government’s adoption of the carrot-and-stick approach.” The Islamists age long terms for a ceasefire remains the release of their terrorists in Nigerian jails, rebuilding of their houses and mosques destroyed in battles with Nigerian armed and security forces and compensation for their losses in these battles. The nihilists were unconcerned, unrepentant and silent on the repair and rebuilding of the businesses, homes, schools, churches, government and other Christian/Southern assets they bombed and burnt across Northern Nigeria! The proud inhuman killers had no word about compensation for the families of the people they murdered. They were cold heartedly unmindful of the huge economic, emotional and psychological losses suffered by Nigerians now displaced at home and overseas. The government was clearly terrified of the group’s threat to bomb Sokoto, the Caliphate Empire’s headquarters and home of the chief northern elemental principality, His Eminence Sultan Abubakar. In the words of the Minister of Information Mr. Labaran Maku, “Sokoto is the spiritual headquarters of all Muslims in Nigeria. The Sultan is officially recognized as the leader of Muslims in Nigeria. He is the prime leader and authority. So, if for example you threaten to attack Sokoto, what is the benefit?” To all intents and purposes military and propaganda, the federal government is yet to cross the Rubicon in its engagement with Boko HARAM. FOR TERRIFYING THE WEST NATIONS OF MALI AND SENEGAL INTO HOSTING THE TALKS BECAUSE IT APPEARS TO HAVE THE UPPER, BUT BLOODIED HANDS IN THESE TENTATIVE NEGOTIATIONS, BOKO HARAM IS MY PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012!

PROLOGUE: In year 2013, I have no hope that the fires of Boko Haram will be put out easily by the federal government and its security agencies and armed forces. Since November 23, 2012, when the JTF paraded various cash rewards online for information that will bring about the capture of senior Boko Haram commanders especially members of the “Shurra Committee,” nothing has come forth from the public. For the bearded, dangerous Islamists in the sect’s highest decision making council, the beat goes on! I expect an inept federal government to grow in imbecility and incompetence before it gets its act together, if ever! Napoleon Bonaparte, a renowned military grandmaster reasoned that “in politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”On January 8, 2011, the Israeli ambassador to Nigeria Mr Moshe Ram observed that “Nigeria is really at a crossroads. The way Nigeria and {people} everywhere should handle it with an iron fist. Not to permit terror to dictate the way the people live.” His offer of Israeli security expertise has met with loud silence from Aso Rock: “We know what it is to be exposed to terror. And we know we have the capability, we have the knowledge and we are willing to share knowledge and our abilities with our good friends in Nigeria.” In December 2012, the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Dikko Abubakar and the National Assembly publicly disagreed over why the terrorists are not prosecuted in our law courts. While the IG blamed enabling laws, the lawmakers faulted his ignorance of existing laws that it said are more than adequate for prosecution. Ex-Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro in December 2012 worried that the murderous Islamists are ahead of the security agencies in terms of technology, equipment and sophistication. He advised that “security agencies should be ahead of them, not behind them, to succeed. Once this is not done, we will just be beating about the bush.”Okiro also sighted “flaws” in the Anti-terrorism Act that President Jonathan signed into law in 2011. The ex-IG fumed that“the law did not make provision for centrality of authority. It did not clearly state areas the National Security Adviser {NSA} should take action or areas the police and other security agencies should take action.” On December 6, 2012, former head of state General Abdusalami Abubakar spoke at the Arewa House Conference on ‘The North and Strategies for Sustainable Development.’ While urging northern leaders to join the federal government to combat the Islamist insurgency, he posited that “every Nigerian is a security officer.” General Abubakar lamented that the north needs about twenty years to be made whole from the affliction caused by the destructive Jihadists. Economic realities may force northern elemental powers to align with their Arabic/Islamic interests abroad and withdraw total support for the Islamists. Though the International Criminal Court {ICC} affirmed that it has a “reasonable basis” to hold Boko Haram responsible for crimes against humanity, the Jihadist rebellion that have claimed the lives of over 2,800 people surges on. President Jonathan’s government is further being hampered by the biased mindset of the American Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Affairs, Johnnie Carson. On April 28, 2011, Carson realised that “Nigeria’s Muslim population is larger than any Arab state.” A buffoon par excellence, Carson on April 9, 2012, alternately credited Nigeria with being “the second largest Muslim country in Africa after Egypt.” Did Egypt’s Muslim population overtake Nigeria’s between April 28, 2011 and April 9, 2012? Or has Egypt ceased to be an Arab state? The confused US diplomat also told a US Congressional sub-committee on July 10, 2012, that in a few years time, Nigeria will steam ahead of Egypt as the largest “Muslim state.” While the statement Carson was to officially read has it that Nigeria has “the sixth largest Muslim population in the world and Nigeria is the world’s largest country to have approximately equal number of Christians and Muslims,” the idiotic Carson persists in calling Nigeria a “Muslim state.” One time British Prime Minister Winston Churchill noted that “the religion of Islam above all others was founded upon the sword. Moreover, it provides incentives to slaughter, and in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men filled with a wild and merciless fanaticism.” Churchill stopped short of telling his audience that over 109 verses in the Koran, Islam’s holy book imposes on Muslims the duty to fight, subjugate, kill and crucify Jews and Christians. It also permits Muslims to invalidate treaties made with them. Peaceful proselytizing has not been the trade of Islam, but force of arms. The founder of Islam, Prophet Mohammed said at the beginning of his movement: “There is no compulsion in religion.” But later, he personally led men in battle with the objective of spreading the faith he founded. Churchill lived and died before the following Islamic terrorist acts: September 11, 2001 when al-Qaeda terrorists bombed America with the cost of about 3,000 lives, before Dutch centre-right politician Pim Fortuyn was murdered by van der Graaf on May 6, 2002, before the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004, before the July 5, 2005, London Underground train bombings that took 37 lives and before Dutch film director, producer, columnist and author Theo van Gogh was assassinated on November 2, 2004 by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim radical. My best conjecture is that there will be implosion within the deadly Islamic sect if northern elemental titans angry at the economic, commercial, developmental and educational backwardness of the region, withdraws their support. For personal and regional reasons, these power and wealth brokers can’t keep quiet much longer. The longer Boko Haram persists in its war of decimation for everything they hold dear and sacred, the more perilous their position and feudal privileges will be. The realization that the south is no longer ready to play second fiddle to the north is a painful pill that they are forced to swallow. Additionally and more suicidal, Boko Haram’s variant of Islam is to replace the existing Hausa Fulani aristocracy laden with rotten, royal privileges. The murderous followers of Mohammed Yusuf have no intention to cuddle and coo them. In 2013, I expect Boko Haram to brainwash more men in their military camps with promises of virginal concupiscence and exhilarating wines. To ensure maximum damage, they may graduate to bombing beauty pageants, matriculations and convocation ceremonies, hijacking planes or destroying athletes in any national games foolishly held in the North. Aside from churches which are their perennial and eternal targets, they have attacked luxury buses, markets, mosques, schools and burnt cattle! As defined by them, “infidels” in the North may not likely know peace in 2013. Someday, there will be a denial of the destructive binges of Boko Haram. Right now, though the Islamic extremists have repeatedly proclaimed the enthronement of Sharia law to be their sole aim and objective, their northern apologists blindly blames poverty and governance malfeasance for their rebellion. Muslims in Britain became “offended” in 2008 that the Holocaust still remained in school curriculum and waged media and emotional blackmail to have it expunged, lying brazenly that Hitler’s murder of six million Jews never occurred! Officially, the Islamic Republic of Iran tells all and sundry that the Holocaust is a “myth.”Therefore, I expect Northern elemental powers many years from now to be aghast at the “southern dominated Christian media”if the crimes and genocide of Boko Haram, Nigeria’s horrific Jihadist movement are mentioned. Col Umar foresaw greaterBoko Haram challenge in the decades to come. According to him, “there are many issues that the Boko Haram insurgency has thrown up which cannot be easily addressed; some have no solution at all.” With the sad memory of the Madalla bombings of December 25, 2011 in mind, Christian places of worship in particular and the nation in general were placed under 24-hour security watch on Sunday December 23, 2012 by the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar as the yuletide loomed near. But that did not stop 12 worshippers from being killed by Islamic terrorists at Church of Christ  in Nations at a village near Potiskum, the Yobe State capital and First Baptist Church, Maiduguri, Borno State on December 24, 2012. On December 28, 2012, suspected Boko Haram militants attacked Musari village on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Borno State capital and slit the throats of 15 residents while chanting the Jihadist death anthem: “God is great!” A similar barbarity same day in Maiha, Adamawa State took six lives. When Nigeria’s First Family worshipped at Cathedral Church of the Advent, Life Camp, Gwarimpa, Abuja on Christmas Day December 25, 2012, the Primate, Metropolitan and Head of the Anglican Communion All Nigeria, Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh urged President Goodluck Jonathan to firmly solve the challenge of Boko Haram in 2013. At a church service in Ekklisiya Yan Uwa A Nigeria (EYN) yesterday in Abuja, President Jonathan said: “Let me assure you that government is working hard, and we will continue to work very hard. We are suppressing the insurgency. For instance, before Christmas, we were told that the whole of Abuja will be burnt down, including Maiduguri, among others. Though we had some incidents in some parts, but they were minimized.”  Folks, let’s pray and hope that his assurance is worth the paper it]s printed on.

FOR THIS INCENDIARY MIX OF POLITICS AND RELIGION, REALITY AND ILLUSION, TRUTH AND DELUSION, FOR DECEIVING STATESMEN AND DELIGHTING SCOUNDRELS, NIGERIA’S ULTRA CONSERVATIVE JIHADIST SECT BOKO HARAM IS MY PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012!

ASALAAM AILEKUN!

Our first runner up in the PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012 contest are kidnappers who added cruel innovation, commercialized criminality, acidic style and petrifying panache to their horrendous deeds in 2012. Delta State became the womb of kidnapping this year. Law abiding indigenes of Anioma area of Delta State discovered to their horror that vile hoodlums with unlimited anointing from hell have been commissioned by Satan to especially torture grandparents. It is now a great danger to be a parent of an elected/appointed official or a wealthy businessman in Delta State. Chief {Mrs} Kachikwu, the mother of Dumebi Kachikwu, a wealthy businessman and former son in-law of ex-aviation and transport minister in President Obasanjo’s government, Dr [Mrs} Kema Chikwe was kidnapped. The father of Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, ex-commissioner and secretary to Delta State government was put out of seclusion for some days. The same wicked fate befell Chief {Mrs} Sussana Elumelu, the mother of the Buffet Warren of Africa and the immediate Group Managing Director of the United Bank for Africa Plc {UBA Plc}, Tony Elumelu. The madness reached its zenith when Kamene Okonjo, the mother of Dr {Mrs} Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister of Finance and Co-coordinating Minister of the Economy was stashed away by kidnappers on December 16, 2012. The 82 year-old retired professor of Sociology, Queen Mother of Ogwashi Ukwu kingdom and the mother of “the mother of the economy” did not see sunlight for five days before a joint military and police force freed her from hell. Her case reverberated worldwide, earning Nigeria much bad press. Nollywood, Nigeria’s movie industry now has a new script after the kidnap saga of three pearls of the scented movement: Pete “Ebubedike” Edochie, a veteran venerable grandfather; Osuofia, an iconoclastic super performer and Nkiru Sylvanus, a controversial, politically powered scenic beauty.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, FOLKS!