Stop Labeling Me Boko Haram Founder, Sponsor, New PDP Chair, Modu-Sheriff Pleads

Ali-Modu-Sheriff

Ex-Borno State Governor and newly inaugurated national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Ali Modu-Sheriff, has reiterated his denial of any link to terrorist organization, Boko Haram.

Following his emergence as chairman of the PDP on Tuesday, the former governor, whose name has often come up as an alleged sponsor of the insurgents, was faced with stiff opposition from outside and within his own party.

Perhaps the most frontal opposition to his emergence was from a former Aviation Minister and spokesman of the Jonathan/Sambo Presidential Campaign Organization in the 2015 presidential election, Femi Fani-Kayode, who pointedly labeled Mr. Modu-Sheriff the indisputable founder of Boko Haram.

Reiterating his innocence, the new national chairman of PDP recalled that the insurgents at a time wanted to kill him on the suspicion that he was the one that gave late President Umaru Yar’Adua information that led to the destruction of their enclave in Borno.

“It was after I left government that they moved to their different camps and bushes. Why should they kill my brother? Why should they kill my family if I am a sponsor of Boko Haram? Is there anywhere in the world that you sponsor people to kill you?” he queried.

Continuing in his defence, Mr. Modu-Sheriff said: “Let me give you a typical example. Just a week ago, all the social media planted my picture showing me with the card of APC joining the party. At that time, nobody wrote that I was Boko Haram. They said Sheriff was going back to APC; they were showing a card when we registered with APC before I left the party. We went to our villages to do it; that village they are showing on the social media was a village that was taken over by Boko Haram for the past three years. So, how could I have gone there to register?”

“Few days after I became the Chairman of the PDP, Ali Sheriff is now Boko Haram; so if you are in APC you are not a Boko Haram. Throughout my period in APC, nobody said I was Boko Haram. Immediately I left the APC, I was termed Boko Haram”, he said.

“Nobody in my family or relation is Boko Haram or close to any Boko Haram member. These people that wanted to kill me, up till today, if they have the chance, they will kill me because they think I reported them to Yar’Adua who leveled their places of worship and along the line, their leader was killed.

“And that was my crime and why they wanted to kill me. But people that are afraid of me changed the story and they keep on doing it. Every day, they write different things but you and I know that nobody is above the laws of Nigeria. I believe that President Buhari, even if it is his son or blood brother that is a Boko Haram, he will arrest and prosecute him. So the allegation is the figment of the imagination of the writers”, the PDP chairman said.