Thursday, December 31, 2020

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Six Queries on the Kidnap and Release of the Kankara Schoolboys

The ex-governor of Oyo State (29 May 1999 - 29 May 2003), Alhaji Lam Onaolapo Adesina died on Sunday, 11 November 2012. Consequently, his press secretary during his tenure as a governor, Agbaakin Kehinde Olaosebikan wrote to eulogise him in the Nigerian Vanguard of 18 November 2012. Traditionally and culturally, funeral eulogy is the most hypocritical world over, since it is forbidden to say anything bad about what the dead had done while alive but to say only positive things which in most cases may just be invented. In his attempt to eulogise the late Lam Adesina, Mr Olaosebikan embellished and salted the story of a visit led by retired General Muhammadu Buhari to governor Lam Adesina in year 2000. Reminiscing Buhari's led visit to the Governor of Oyo State, Mr. Olaosebikan wrote, "13 October 2000, words went round that General Muhammadu Buhari was leading the Arewa team to the governor's office to confront the state over alleged killings of Fulani cattle rearers in Saki, Oke Ogun Area of the State. Buhari did actually telephone the governor that he was leading a team to his office." The expression, words went round, is equal to saying that there were rumours. To make the eulogy of the late governor sweet, Buhari was not presented as a General emeritus by Mr. Olaosebikan but as a still-active military General leading a team of Arewa soldiers to confront the governor of Oyo State. Suddenly, Mr. Olaosebikan converted the rumour, words went round, to reality by asserting without substantiation that 'Buhari actually telephoned the governor that he was leading a team to his office.' How did he know that Buhari telephoned the governor?

When the projected battle ready Buhari was afforded the opportunity to narrate the cause of his visit to the Governor, he said that in the month of May 2000, 68 bodies of Fulani cattle rearers  were recovered in Saki, Oke Ogun Area of Oyo State. He wanted, the killings to stop immediately and the killers brought to trial while compensations were made to the victim's survivors. At the time Buhari visited Governor Lam Adesina, on 13 October 2000, there was no reported ongoing killings of Fulani cattle rearers in Oyo state. Buhari's only complaint was about the alleged killings that had occurred over four months earlier, in May 2000. As narrated by Mr. Olaosebikan, Buhari never issued any threat to Lam Adesina but he only sought clarity over Oyo communal violence that had resulted in deaths of some cattle rearers in the state. Alhaji Lam Onaolapo Adesina was a Muslim just like Buhari and probably religious affinity might have encouraged Muhammadu Buhari to seek audience with his fellow Muslim brother over the alleged murder of the Fulani herders in Oyo State. It is remarkable that the Governor of Oyo State, Lam Adesina was not under legal or military compulsion to grant audience to Muhammadu Buhari to explain how Oyo state was governed. In fact, the behaviour of Buhari in seeking explanation direct from the Governor over what was alleged to be ethnic cleansing of Fulani herders in Oyo State was statesmanlike and the humility of Lam Adesina in entertaining Buhari's interrogation was not only democratic but an act of a civilised person. Buhari and his entourage left Oyo and nothing acrimonious happened after his visit there, 13 October 2000. 

As the Yoruba aphorism has it : OLÈ NI O MÓ ESÈ OLÈ TÒ NI ORÍ ÀPÁTÁ, roughly translated to, it is only a thief that can track the footstep of another thief on the rock. A nepotist will always recognise another nepotist. Nigerian nepotists do not accept Buhari and his public officials, whether selected or elected, appointed or employed, as Nigerians. Instead of questioning the incompetence and inefficiency of Buhari and his public officials when they fail to deliver on what their offices are designed to produce, the infantile Nigerian intellectual nepotists only attribute their failures to deliver goods and services in the country to ethno-religious affiliations of the public officials. Thus, for instance, if officials in the ministry of water supply fail to produce potable water for all thirsty Nigerian citizens, as required from their office, the Nigerian intellectual nepotists would rather blame failure of the officials to perform their duties on ethnicity and religion, instead of incompetence. Rewarding incompetent officials is institutionalised in Nigeria and Buhari cannot do anything about it under the present laws and the constitution. Saying that does not imply that I support everything Buhari does and therefore, Afonja's situation does arise here.

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, the propagator of state's bordels establishment in Nigeria, a stalker and specialist in photographing ladies' buttocks regaled readers on this thread thus, "A simple Google search will bring up news reports quoting Buhari stating that war on Boko Haram is war against the North. No need to invoke second hand statements." Is Mr. Adepoju telling his readers that whatever is in the Google is absolutely true and should be swallowed. Well, Mr. Adepoju can decide to eat shit because millions of flies do that without getting sick, but he should refrain from urging me to partake in his delicious delicatessen. No need to invoke second hand statements, the notorious tenth rated Ifa priest and intellectual mythologist wrote as if any Google's statement on Buhari is a first-hand information. Swimming along with the stream, Mr. Adepoju was finally carried to the middle of Google's sea where while drowning, he shouted "Salimonu is a terrorist ideologue," because I have asked severally on this forum, especially from Hausa speaking members, if the English translation of the name Boko Haram is Western Education is Forbidden. Although I got no response, I consulted Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju's almighty Google for the meaning of Boko Haram in English language.  Under the title, Western Education is Forbidden, the Google post of 24 November 2016 posted the following : But residents in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, where the group had its headquarters, dubbed it Boko Haram. Loosely translated from the region's Hausa language, this means Western Education is Forbidden.  Google clarified the translation thus, "Boko originally meant fake but came to signify Western education, while haram means forbidden." Haram is not even a Hausa word, but Arabic which means either abomination or forbidden. If Boko in Hausa means Fake,  and Haram means Forbidden, according to the Google, the correct translation of Boko Haram should be Fake is Forbidden and not Western Education is Forbidden. Of course, because of his pathological hatred for the Hausa/Fulani people of Nigeria, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, is always ready to accept any negative information about the Muslim-Hausa-Fulani people no matter how unreasonable, stupid and foolish such information is. I strongly advise him to go for rehabilitation from prejudice against any of his fellow Nigerians.
S. Kadiri 


From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: 30 December 2020 05:53
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Six Queries on the Kidnap and Release of the Kankara Schoolboys
 
A simple Google search will bring up news reports quoting Buhari stating that the war on Boko Haram is war agst the North.

No need to invoke second hand statements.

I have posted various news reports from when Buhari made this comment and will not do so again unless the person challenging the report shows they have done their own research and failed to find such reports.

Miyetti Allah is quoted as stating, in the context of the Kankara abduction, that a good part of the current security crisis in the North is caused by their own constituency.

On the ground observers have also stated they see the abduction as the work of Fulani herdsmen, not Boko Haram, as has also been stated in a news report, a report I am yet to read Miyetti Allah challenging.

Miyetti Allah is the terrorist arm of Buhari's govt.

Since he came to power in 2015, they openly declare that their troops massacre Nigerians, justify these atrocities and are left undisturbed.

They openly threatened Benue, committed another massacre there, for which Buhari's govt blamed the Benue govt.

The same govt awarded Miyetti Allah/MACBAN billions of Nigeria's money to supposedly rehabilitate  their members.

It is safe to conclude these people are using Nigeria's resources to develop an internal colonisation.

I cried out about this while some others saw me as alarmist.

Well after I began crying out, OBJ referenced a Fulanisation agenda and T Y Danjuma  identified the army as colluding with the terrorists.

The only person left of defenders of Miyetti Allah and of Fulani herdsmen terrorism on this group is Salimonu Kadiri.

His streategy is that of obfuscation.

When Miyetti Allah members own up and justify massacres, he would struggle to dissociate them from Miyetti Allah.

At other times, he would act as if such declarations were not made.

At other times, he would struggle to whitewash them.

He has also tried to obfuscate the identity of Boko Haram, trying to erase the groups combination of communalistic Islam and terrorism.

Salimonu is a terrorist ideologue.

One must respect everyone's freedom of speech but must also accurately describe what people do with their freedom of speech.

Thanks

Toyin

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 05:20 Femi Segun <soloruntoba@gmail.com> wrote:
Alagba Salimonu Kadiri,
Thanks for your intervention. I agree that it was  Dr.  Doyin Okupe who made the allegation against Buhari. I also listened to the interview that Okinbaloye had with Buhairi where he complained about Jonathan not doing enough to crush Boko Haram. This was all politics.  Granted that the two claims are irreconcilable. But what  do you say to Buhari;s visit to late Alhaji Lam Adesina on October 13, 2000, when he came with his fellows from the North to threaten the Governor for killing his people. Please see this link: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/11/day-lam-adesina-clashed-with-buhari-marwa-others/. As a  former Head of State who aspired to rule Nigeria, that was the least one would expect Buhari to do. I agree with Moses Ochonu and several others on this list that we were all scammed by the propaganda that Buhari has been reformed. He is an irredeemable nepotist who believe his Fulani kinsmen are superior to the rest of us. As I said earlier on, those who continue to support him in the South can simply pass as the offspring  of Afonja who betrayed his own people for personal benefit. History will be hash on such people. Apart from the corruption among the security agents, which you rightly identified, ethno-religious solidarity and the body language of the President will make the war against Boko Haram difficult to win. Can you hear the President saying it  is only  God who can deliver us from terrorists barely two weeks after his Chief of Army Staff said it will take more than twenty years to defeat Boko Haram? What does this tell us?
I rest my case. 
I rest my case. 

On Sun, Dec 27, 2020 at 4:13 PM Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:
"The release of the #KankaraBoys - I don't care at what cost - is one of the few bright spots of the Buhari regime," I wrote. It shows at least that the regime has learned from GEJ's lethargy and callousness when the Chibok kidnap happened. Instead of rescuing the girls, Jonathan and his officials quibbled over whether the kidnap actually took place - and helped to fertilize unhealthy and unhelpful conspiracy theories. Some of the girls are still missing" - Farooq Kperogi.

Instead of the six queries, the only query that should be posed is, how could the kidnap of students of the Government Science Secondary School (GSSS), Kankara, Katsina State, ever take place? It was such an intelligent and a logical question (premised on circumstances and availability of military resources) that made President Jonathan to doubt in 2014 if the Chibok's abductions ever took place. Let's recall some events leading to the kidnap of Chibok girls in April 2014.

At the height of Boko Haram attacks on 8 September 2010, President Goodluck Jonathan removed the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Abdulrahman Dambazau, and replaced him with Major General Azubuike Onyeabor Ihejirika. Nevertheless, Boko Haram escalated their attacks in the North East culminating in the attack on Nigeria's 79 Composite Group Air Force Base, Maiduguri International Airport and some Army locations in Borno State, on 2 December 2013. Consequently, President Jonathan was forced to remove and reshuffle his Service Chiefs with effect from 16 January 2014, whereby Major General Kenneth Tobiah Jacob Minimah became the Chief of Army Staff. Remarkably, President Jonathan's led Federal Government had on 26 May 2013, declared Emergency rule in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States where dusk to dawn curfew was to be enforced by the Nigerian Armed Forces. Despite the change of Service Chiefs, 200 Boko Haram fighters in 12 Hilux pickup trucks filed into Maiduguri on 14 March 2014, in a broad daylight and demolished Giwa Barracks. Although Giwa Barracks was jammed packed with luxurious cars, it contained only a malfunctioned army tank. The 200 Boko Haram fighters completed their mission in Maiduguri and returned to their base unchallenged by the Nigerian Armed Forces in the Emergency ruled Borno State. A month later, 14 April 2014, Boko Haram struck at Chibok to kidnap almost 300 secondary school girls and transported them in a convoy to Sambisa forest, situated 60 kilometres to Chibok. Where were the Nigerian Army and Airforce when Boko Haram came to abduct Chibok's school girls in the middle of the night where dusk to dawn curfew was in force? Knowing that the Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Air Staff had received huge amounts to buy weapons, recruit soldiers and pilots, in addition to the state of emergency rule, Jonathan was right, as any sensible person would do, to disbelieve the kidnap of the Chibok girls. It was after Buhari came to power that the EFCC could reveal that under President Jonathan, top ranked officers of the Armed Forces were diverting funds set aside for war against Boko Haram into their private pockets. They shared among themselves money appropriated to buy weapons and recruit soldiers to fight insurgents. Ghost soldiers deployed by Nigeria's Service Chiefs gave free passage and movements to Boko Haram. What happened to the military officers whose treasonable acts of stealing security funds led to deaths of thousands of Nigerians and displacement of over 2 million people? Instead of being Court-martialled the EFCC was forced to agree in civil courts with the military traitors on plea bargaining whereby a fraction of stolen security funds was forfeited by each culprit to the government. As we all know where there is no punishment, there can be no deterrence. Therefore, current Service Chiefs cannot be different from their predecessors in office when it comes to recruiting ghost soldiers and fighting insurgents with spiritual weapons while they are openly transferring security funds into their own personal private bank accounts.

The Sultan of Sokoto has described the kidnapping of Kankara students in Katsina State as a slap on the face of President Buhari whose state of origin is Katsina. But Daura is the hometown of President Muhammadu Buhari in Katsina State and it is on record that on Wednesday, 1 May 2019, the District Head of Daura, Alhaji Musa Umar Uba, was kidnapped right in front of his own house shortly after returning from the Mosque for evening prayers. In this wise, Buhari would seem used to being slapped in the face. Should the kidnapping of the Kankara students have occurred at all? This question is called for in view of security arrangements already on ground in Katsina State. After the rescue of the District Head of Daura in Kano in July 2019,  and towards the end of 2019, the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, deployed a special task force tagged "Operation Puff Adder" in Katsina State which were located in nine front-line local government areas of the State. In May 2020, the Nigerian Army commenced Operation Sahel Sanity and Operation Sharan Daji with troops based in Faskari, Katsina State, in addition to operation Harbin Kunama, all designed to flush out bandits, cattle rustlers and kidnappers in Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto. With the kidnap of the Kankara secondary school students, one must ask where all the special task forces in Katsina were when the bandits arrived? According to online Vanguard Nigeria of Saturday, 12 December 2020, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO)) in Katsina, SP Gambo Isah told newsmen : Yesterday, at about 9:40 p.m., bandits in their numbers, shooting sporadically with AK 47 rifles, attacked Government Science Secondary School Kankara, Kankara Local Government Area. The policemen on duty also responded to the attack and engaged them in a gun duel which gave the students opportunity to scale the fence of the school and ran for safety. The DPO (District Police Officer) Kankara, reinforced the policemen on duty with Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) which forced the hoodlums to retreat into the forest. The following day, under the caption, Confusion over 884 students as gunmen attack Katsina school, the online Nigerian Vanguard rendering an eyewitness account reported : The bandits stormed Kankara town around 10:06p.m., shooting sporadically. They came to the town and even close to the residence of the District Head. DPO alerted Operation Sharan Daji and Operation Sahel Sanity who repelled the attack. On their way out (of Kankara town), they attacked the GSSS, situated on the outskirts on the way to Yan Tsabau, SHOT THE SECURITY GUARD AND ENTERED THE SCHOOL. On the same day, 13 December 2020, the Minister of Defence, Bashir Salihi-Magashi, and the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai paid on the spot assessment visit to the Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Bello Massari. Reporting the visit, the online Nigerian Premium Times wrote that the governor told his guests that Kankara's GSSS contained 839 students out of which 333 were abducted. Premium Times reported, "Residents said the gunmen had earlier attacked Kankara town, injuring many residents but were later repelled by security forces. The gunmen in large numbers, on motorbikes, invaded the school's premises around 11:00 p.m., Friday night shooting to scare and kill. They, thereafter, went away with many students. According to the online Nigerian Premium times of 16 December 2020, the Gateman at the GSSS said that he ran into hiding when the bandits, on arrival, started shooting. He said the bandits operated from 10:00 p.m., to 2:40 a.m. What conclusion can one draw from the bandits attack on the Kankara GSSS and their ability to abduct 344 students and ferry them to Tsafe in Zamfara State, a distance of 82.5 km by road from Kankara town in Katsina State?

At the time Katsina Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Gambo Isah, issued a press release on Saturday, 12 December 2020 that the policemen on duty at Kankara GSSS engaged the attacking bandits in gun duels which gave the students opportunity to scale the fence of the school and ran into safety he was not aware that some of the students were abducted. Although there should always be policemen on duty at Kankara GSSS, in view of *Operation Puff Adder* that commenced in all the nine local government areas in Katsina state since 5 April 2019 and still ongoing, there were no policemen on duty at the school on that day except a gateman (MAIGARDI) by name Garba Hassan who told Premium Times that the bandits operated in the school from 10:00 p.m., to 2:40 a.m., a duration of four hours and forty minutes. The lie of Superintendent of Police (SP), Gambo Isah, in stating that 'the DPO in Kankara, reinforced the policemen on duty with Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) which forced the hoodlums to retreat into the forest' would have been difficult to discover, had it been that no student was abducted or the abducted students were kept in nearby forest to Kankara GSSS. Did the hoodlums retreat into the forest with their motorcycles and why were they not pursued? Besides the Nigerian Police Force *Operation Puff Adder* created purposely to combat banditry, kidnappings, armed robberies and cattle rustlings in Katsina, the Nigerian Army also commenced *Operation Sahel Sanity* in May 2020, for similar purposes with troops based in Faskari, Katsina State. As late as Saturday, 12 September 2020, the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai announced at a public conference, at the Army Super Camp 4, Faskari, Katsina, that Operation Sahel Sanity had been extended to December 2020. For Operations Puff Adder, Sahel Sanity and Sharan Daji the Federal Government has provided funds to the Police and Army Chiefs to buy weapons, recruit and maintain personnel. However, when the bandits came to the GSSS in Kankara all the Police and Army Operations that were created and financed to combat them proved to exist only on papers but not in reality. That was why the bandits got free passage to ferry abducted 344 students from Kankara in Katsina State to Tsafe in Zamfara State on motorcycles without being apprehended neither by the Nigerian Police nor by the Nigerian Army!! Of course, if two-thirds of personnel on police and army payrolls are ghost policemen and soldiers respectively, while the bank accounts of the top police and army officers swell with security funds, then the proliferation of crimes whether by insurgents, bandits and kidnappers should not be a surprise to anyone. What happened with the Kankara GSSS students is reminiscent of what Professor Jibrin Ibrahim wrote in his column in the Daily Trust of Friday, 12 June 2020, when he asserted and wondered thus, "For over one decade now, attackers would move in large numbers and kill and there will be no response from the State (Security Agencies) while it is happening. ...//... No one understands how people can steal cattle and drive them on foot for days, going through villages and they are never caught." Buhari, according to the Cable online, had said that he was extremely worried that the security agencies are not doing enough (despite large amount of funds the security agencies have received).  Professor Falola envisages re-occurrence of Kankara kidnappings in the future and I agree with him as long as top Police and Army officers are free to siphon funds meant for purchase of weapons, recruitment and maintenance of personnel.

Farooq Kperogi in question 5 of his article on the kidnap of Kankara GSSS students wondered hypothetically that if Miyetti Allah had been involved in the GSSS students' kidnap as being bandied, why has the group not been treated as a security threat by the security agencies. Elsewhere on this thread, Femi Segun pretended as if it had been confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that Miyetti Allah group are terrorists and he tried to offer reasons why they could not be declared terrorists. Blaming lack of treatment of Miyetti Allah as a terrorist organisation, Femi Segun averred, "Buhari was quoted on Liberty Radio in July 2014 that an attack against Boko Haram was an attack against the North." In order to prove that Mohammadu Buhari actually uttered those words, Mr. Femi Segun directed readers to a link. Before talking about the link, it must be stated that it has never been proved anywhere that Miyetti Allah was involved in the kidnapping of the 344 Kankara students. When the Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Bello Massari, claimed that his government was negotiating with the bandits that abducted 344 students in his state through Miyetti Allah, the National Secretary of Miyetti Allah, Alhassan Saleh, dissociated the group with the bandits. He told Sahara Reporters on 17 December 2020, "I have spoken to the (Katsina) State chairman (of Miyetti Allah), and he said he wasn't aware of any discussion or negotiation with the schoolboys' abductors." On the same day, almost all the media in Nigeria reported Governor Massari as having said that the local Chairman of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN), is a civil servant with the Katsina State Government. He clarified that, "while the military in the theatre of operation are now talking directly to the bandits, the government (of Katsina State) is talking to them through Miyetti Allah. The evidence before the whole world is that on Friday, 18 December 2020, at 9 : 26 a.m., the Commander of 17 Brigade, Brigadier-General W. B. Idris handed over 344 students of GSSS, Kankara to Governor Aminu Bello Massari. According to the online Nigerian Punch of that day, the Nigerian Air Force claimed that the abductors were denied freedom of action through intensive air surveillance. Up till now, Miyetti Allah, local or national, is yet to publicly claim any role in rescuing the abducted GSSS students.

Going back to the link submitted by Femi Segun to substantiate his claim that Muhammadu Buhari on liberty Radio in July 2014 said that an attack against Boko HARAM WAS AN ATTACK AGAINST THE NORTH, anyone hoping to find Buhari uttered those words would be disappointed as one would discover that it was one Doyin Okupe who was alleging in the link, dated 15 December 2014, that Buhari had uttered those words. In fact, Buhari had appeared on Channel's TV, on 7 December 2014, where he said that 'FG's effort in fighting Boko Haram is unsatisfactory' and Doyin Okupe's appearance on Channel's TV was aimed at responding to Buhari's criticism of the Federal Government, a week earlier, for fighting Boko Haram unsatisfactorily. Whatever Buhari might have been alleged to have said in July 2014 about fighting Boko Haram was invalidated by his call for more efficient way of combating the sect. Of course, there was no evidence that Buhari actually uttered those words and one is compelled to examine the credibility of Doyin Okupe who was crediting Buhari with pro- Boko Haram statement. Doyin Okupe is a trained physician that has never practised his profession as medical doctor in Nigeria. President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed him as a Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs but he was sacked when EFCC investigation showed that he obtained a contract from the government of Benue State and received a mobilization sum of N200 million without executing the project. However, President Goodluck Jonathan appointed him in the same capacity, as Obasanjo did, after winning 2011 presidential election. The same Doyin Okupe who was alleging, on December 2014 that Buhari was a Boko Haram supporter had on 16 October 2014, corroborated the announcement of Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Subundu Badeh, that a ceasefire agreement had been concluded between the Federal Government and the Ahli Sunna Li Daawa Wal Jihad (otherwise called Boko Haram) in which he directed the Service Chiefs to ensure immediate compliance with the development in the field. Online ThisDay of the same date quoted Doyin Okupe as saying, "The implementation of this ceasefire was signed today and further agreement on this deal, including the release of the kidnapped Chibok girls, are part of the agreement." As it turned out to be, the ceasefire agreement with Boko Haram, on 16 October 2014, was false and it exposed federal government as not being serious in its fight against Boko Haram. During Doyin Okupe's sojourn as Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Jonathan, he also doubled as Managing Director of his private companies - Value Trust Investment and Abraham Telecoms. The EFCC is currently prosecuting Doyin Okupe for money laundering and criminal diversion of funds to the tune of N702 million through his Value Trust Investment and Abraham Telecoms companies during the four years he served under Jonathan. As usual he was granted bail in the sum of N100 million while the case is snail-speeding into oblivion. Every stratum of governance in Nigeria is permeated with stealing of public funds with impunity and as long as senior public officials, whether armed forces or civil servants, continue to steal funds meant for socio-economic security of Nigerians, incident like Kankara abductions will never stop. As the Yoruba saying goes, ÒRÒ T'ÓBÁ KOJÁ EKÚN, ÈRÍN L'ARÍN, meaning, when a matter transcends the bounds of grief, it is time to smile at disaster. Bandits on motorcycles abducted 344 Students in Kankara, Katsina state and ferried them unhindered to Tsafe, a distance of 82.5 km, in Zamfara State. Kankara kidnappings should never have occurred and thanking the security agencies for rescuing the abducted students is just like thanking them for giving back to us what they have wrongly taken away from us.
S. Kadiri   

 


From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: 19 December 2020 16:23
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Six Queries on the Kidnap and Release of the Kankara Schoolboys
 
I'm shocked.

Fulani bandits?

Do they exist?

Does Miyetti Allah make such comments as are being quoted?

Salimonu, please help...something strange is going on..





On Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 16:12 Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, Oga Falola. That is the two-sided tragedy in the matter. Either way, the abductors have won. The additional tragedy is that now you have 344 schoolboys who are probably too traumatized to return to secular schooling, and who may, as a result, be eventually recruited by the same Fulani bandits/terrorists that abducted and traumatized them. A sad, tragic irony.

On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 5:18 AM Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Farooq:

We have not seen the end of this. Whether they are bandits or Boko Haram or MA, they will strike again:

  1. If they were paid, they see a profitable economy.
  2. If they were not paid, they see an efficient negotiation trick in attention and visibility.
  3. If they were paid and communicated with, they see themselves as efficient operators

Expect more.

TF

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Saturday, December 19, 2020 at 5:11 AM
To: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Six Queries on the Kidnap and Release of the Kankara Schoolboys

Saturday, December 19, 2020

Six Queries on the Kidnap and Release of the Kankara Schoolboys

 By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

When it emerged on Thursday that the hundreds of schoolboys that were abducted from Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, were released, I was so relieved that I gave the Buhari regime an unusual pat in the back in my social media updates.

"The release of the #KankaraBoys—I don't care at what cost—is one of the few bright spots of the Buhari regime," I wrote. "It shows at least that the regime has learned from GEJ's lethargy and callousness when the Chibok kidnap happened. Instead of rescuing the girls, Jonathan and his officials quibbled over whether the kidnap actually took place—and helped fertilize unhealthy and unhelpful conspiracy theories. Some of the girls are still missing."

But after my euphoria, I've been grappling with several troubling questions. I will highlight just six here:

1. Who really kidnapped the boys? Was it Boko Haram or so-called Fulani bandits? The initial suspicion was that they were kidnapped by the ever-present, nihilistic, and mercenary "bandits" who have been tormenting the northwest in the last few years—and who don't seem to be animated by any overt religious ideology.

But Boko Haram, whose operations had been mostly limited to the northeast in the last five years, claimed responsibility for the kidnap. As Boko Haram experts have pointed out, it is rare for the group to claim responsibility for acts it didn't commit. In fact, Boko Haram actually takes umbrage at being falsely associated with acts it didn't commit.

The fact that the schoolkids appeared in a video pleading with the government to not deploy the military to find them and to discourage western education redounded to the evidence that they were in Boko Haram's captivity, although some of the boys later told newsmen that "bandits" had told them to lie on camera that they were in Boko Haram's captivity in order to aggrandize the abduction.

Or have "Fulani bandits" and "Kanuri Boko Haramists" merged? If so, that would be at once frighteningly ominous and socio-historically curious. It's ominous because it would mean that the northwest and the northeast—and perhaps even parts of the northcentral—would be overwhelmed by unexampled terrorism in the coming months and years.

It would be socio-historically curious because the Kanuri and the Fulani are not only completely different people, they are—or used to be— "historical enemies." Kanuris resisted Usman Dan Fodio's 19th-century Jihad because they said there was nothing about their Islam, which they'd embraced since at least the 9th century before even the Fulani, that needed Dan Fodio's "reform."

The tensile stress that the Kanem-Borno Empire's repudiation of Dan Fodio's jihad actuated has been somewhat resolved through a ritualized joking relationship between the Kanuri and the Fulani who now call each other "slaves" in lighthearted jest. 

But although Muslim northern Nigeria is emerging as an ethnogenesis, i.e., a new ethnic identity forged from a mishmash of multiple identities, Kanuri people still take pride in having a political identity that is independent of the Fulani-inflected caliphate. A fusion of "bandits" and Boko Haram would unleash a game-changing terroristic blitz on Nigeria.

2. How many students were kidnapped? News stories about the release of the boys quoted Governor Bello Masari as saying that 344 boys had been released. But earlier reports had said the abducted students numbered a little over 500. One of the students who escaped from his captors also said more than 500 of them had been captured. He even said some of them had been murdered by their captors. So what's the truth?

3. Who rescued the boys? The Katsina State government said their rescue was facilitated by Miyetti Allah. But the Nigerian military on Friday contradicted the Katsina State government and insisted that the Defence Headquarters' "Operation Hadarin Daji" was singularly responsible for the release of the boys. Since both claims can't be simultaneously true, one is a lie.

But note that Miyetti Allah appears have officially accepted that its members are responsible for the progressive deterioration of security in the country, according to the Vanguard of December 15, which quoted the group's president, Muhammadu Kirowa, as saying, "We cannot continue to wallow in denial when it is a fact that majority of criminals arrested across the country are from within us, our kith and kin [who] have gone into this circle because of our sheer negligence."

If the abductors are "Fulani bandits," it would make sense that Miyetti Allah would be more helpful in facilitating the release of the boys than the military, which is notorious for being harder on peaceful protesters than on terrorists.

4. Was ransom paid before the boys were released? The Katsina State government said no ransom was paid. It said it used moral suasion to persuade the kidnappers to release the boys. But in a rare moment of clarity on NTA on December 18, Muhammadu Buhari talked of the "settlement of the abductors." 

We all know that "settlement" means under-the-table payment in Nigerian English. I have read online rumor mills that said the abductors were "settled" with up to $4 million. While the figure may not be accurate, the government has a history of giving enormous financial war chests to terrorists. 

On May 6, 2017, for instance, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Buhari regime delivered "a black duffel bag containing €2 million in plastic-wrapped cash" to Boko Haram for the release of 82 of the Chibok girls that were abducted in 2014.

Since ransom payment is a counterproductive and unsustainable security strategy, what is the government doing to ensure that this doesn't happen again?  

5. If the government can identify, negotiate with, and pay abductors, why can't it apprehend them? If Miyetti Allah has admitted that its members are responsible for the mounting insecurity in the country and has even assisted with negotiations for the release of the abducted schoolboys, why is the group not treated, at the very least, like a "group of interest" by security forces?

 Why are #EndSARS protesters, supporters, organizers, and financiers the victims of murder, bank account freezes, and continual harassment by the government while terrorists, abductors, and a self-identified association that facilitates the work of abductors featherbedded? 

6. Finally, in the Kankara abduction saga, agents of government emerged as the most vicious purveyors of transparently fake news. Garba Shehu, Buhari's spokesman, said on December 15 that "contrary to all the fake rumors [so even rumors can be "fake"?] flying around, only 10 students were kidnapped from the school in Kankara." 

Abike Dabiri also prematurely said on her verified Twitter handle that the kidnapped boys had been released. When she was called out, she lied that her Twitter and Instagram handles had been hacked, implying that it was a hacker who posted the false update.

But anyone who is malicious enough to hack anyone's social media account won't post from the same device and location as the original account owner and would post something more vicious than sterile government propaganda. 

Since the regime, particularly its chief lying officer Lai Mohammed, is obsessed with stamping out "fake news," what is the punishment for its agents that shared literal fake news, although Garba Shehu has apologized for his? 

The absence of unambiguous answers to these queries is the biggest driver of conspiracy theories about the abduction. People who disagreed with my initial social media update claimed that the abduction was contrived to lend unearned veneer of competence to the Buhari regime.

This is, of course, silly conspiratorial reasoning. Had the regime been unable to rescue the boys, Buhari would have been justifiably excoriated for incompetence and insensitivity, which are his trademarks. In fact, he was accused precisely of that in the six days that the boys were in captivity. But having rescued them, the regime is now being accused of staging the kidnap. 

Praiseworthy as the saving of the boys from captivity is—from the perspective of a parent—the fact that questions and mutually contradictory claims from the same government linger on after their rescue is more evidence of incompetence than a conspiracy. 


Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building 

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Nigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

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