Boko Haram Call Of Ceasefire: The Buhari Connection

By Babalola Yusuf Abiola

When the dreaded Boko Haram sect announced its readiness to cease fire should the government of the country meets its demands, everybody in the country especially those who were directly affected by the level of insecurity were happy that at last peace will return to the northern part of the country and the country at large.

Part of those who were happy were mainly the business men and women whose businesses and source of livelihood were affected by the crisis also, my Igbo brothers that have lost all what they have labored for. But why some of them were lucky to come back to their region with their lives many were not fortunate as their lives were lost.

Though, considerable numbers of the Easterners has returned to their respective villages and states but lives have never remained the same for most of them since their arrival in their home state so when the call for ceasefire was announced by the sect the joy of many who wished to go back to the region to continue their business knew no bound and were praying for the condition to be what the government can meet.

The conditions as announced by the sect were the arrest and persecution of the former Borno State Governor, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, government should compensate the group, rebuild their place of worship that was destroyed during the 2009 uprising, release all their members in police custody and rehabilitate into the society the children and wives of their members that were displaced.

However, the sect in their bid to stop the killings and bombing of innocent lives and properties want Saudi Arabia to be the meeting point with General Muhammadu Buhari, Shetimma Ali Mongonu, Bukar Abba Ibrahim, Gaji Gaitima and Barrister Aisha Wakil and her husband as mediator. Also, at the round table negotiation discussion on the side of the sect are Abu Mohammed Abdullaziz, Sheik Abu Abas, Sheik Ibrahim Yusuf, Sheik Sani Kontagora, and Mamman Nur.

But, of all the issues mentioned by the Boko Haram sect what has attracted the attention of Nigerians is not the call for the arrest of the former governor of Borno state neither is it the compensation to the wives of their member that was killed during the uprising rather it was the nomination of (RTD) General Muhammadu Buhari as the chief negotiator between the sect and the federal government.

Moreover, Since the sect has named the former head of state and five others a lot of verbal attacked has been hauled at Buhari while some Nigerians were calling him the leader of the dreaded group some were calling him the financier and that the blood of innocent Nigerians that have lost their lives are on him.

This people that resorted to name calling has forgotten that Buhari is one of the most loyal, dedicated and disciplined leaders left in Nigeria as while other past head of states collect salaries and arrears whenever their helps are needed in the country Buhari never did.

When he was the chairman of the petroleum trust fund during the tenure of General Sanni Abacha he never collected salary or arrears from the federal government of Nigeria saying he receives salary from the government as a former head of state so he needs not collect salary for rendering service to his beloved country.

My question is who among the present crop of leaders we have in the country can do that, what about Buhari’s call for audit into his years as the petroleum trust fund chairman  who among Nigerian leader can single handedly call for probe after his tenure except the only disciplined Mai Gaskiya meaning the honest man in Hausa language.

Some even call him religion bigot who thought because of his ambition to Islamize Nigeria makes him sponsors the sect, but the move to tell this same people that Buhari’s personal driver and cook are Christians falls on deaf ears. 

Add to it that one of the people Buhari respects most in the country is Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, a Christian, former Chief of Army Staff, and later Defence Minister, they block their ears with wax. And to further prove that he has no antipathy towards Christianity, remind them that Buhari picked a pastor and preacher as running mate in last year’s presidential elections then they will tell you Tunde Bakare was formally a Muslim before converting to Christian.

To me the choice of the retired General Muhammadu Buhari was not unconnected with the fact that the sect knew that buhari is one of the remaining loyal northern leaders in the country or if in doubt call a Hausa motorcyclist and asks him about Muhammadu Buhari then you yourself will hear what they will say about him.

Am not holding brief for him neither am I supporting him but everybody in this world has his own past, so saying Buhari is being hunt by his past won’t be an understatement but I won’t advise us to throw away the baby with the bath water, we should not hastily conclude that because Buhari has promised fire and brimstone after the presidential election then he is part and parcel of the dreaded group. 

But what about the statement made by some Northern People Democratic Party (PDP) leaders that promised to make the country ungovernable for president Goodluck Jonathan if he should run for the presidency, what was done to them what about the words of one of the presidential aspirant of the party, then why label Buhari a dog because we want to crucify him.

Now that Buhari has refused to be a negotiator between the federal government and the sect that means there will still be continuous loss of lives of innocent Nigerian who know little or nothing about the Boko Haram reason for insurgencies.

Also, will the attack on the respected general by the president attack dog for asking the PDP to put it house in other and who will the Boko Haram call upon in the North to do the lob respected General Buhari has dissociated himself from.

I won’t blame him for doing that because should he accept the role then what we hear from Nigerians will be, Buhari has gone to Saudi Arabia to pacify his foot soldiers, Buhari has ended what he started and on like that and the name he has built over the years will be soiled by hell bent individual who have been looking for every thing to nail my own MR INTERGRITY. 

Also, before the federal government jumped to accept the call for negotiation we need to decipher whether this group calling for ceasefire is the real member of the sect because the way and manner in which they called for the truce is suspicious.

According to Daniel Elombah, in an article posted on the Internet under the headline, ‘This desperate attempt to link Buhari with Boko Haram,’ Elombah asked pertinent questions about the olive branch waved by Boko Haram through one Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulazeez, who spoke on behalf of the sect last week. 

The germane posers are as follows: this purported spokesman had not hitherto been known to the media, how then can anyone be sure he is authentic? Two, he spoke in English, a language never known to have been used by Boko Haram spokesmen, who usually speak in Hausa, and use the name Abu this or Abu that.

Three, Abdulazeez did not ask for the implementation of Sharia law across Nigeria, a long-term demand of the sect. Four, the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, had always disowned any idea of talks with the government through videos posted online.

 Is Shekau now part of this deal? Why not then come out to authenticate it? Elombah concluded:

Left for me the truth remains that (RTD) General Muhammadu Buhari is somebody who does not have the resources or financial capacity to finance or sponsor the dreaded Islamic sect but for anybody who have a genuine evidence and case that can link Buhari with Boko Haram should come out with it because not even the federal government have it because should they have it, Buhari who happened to be the number one enemy of the purported mafias in Nigeria should be in jail by now.

So, I believe this man called Muhammadu Buhari still remains the best president Nigeria never had like the late western region premier Chief Obafemi Awolowo and I hope we never regret it as a country.

Woman boils two-year-old stepdaughter’s hands

 

• Little Esther flanked by her step- mother      

By WOLE BALOGUN
Residents of Langbasa, a community in Ajah area of Lagos, are accusing a woman in the neighbourhood of causing a grievous harm on her two-year-old stepdaughter. Kehinde, as she’s known, is in trouble for allegedly dipping the two hands of her little stepdaughter, Esther, into oven-hot water.

The girl’s hands were boiled terribly, and many are raising concern that one of them might have become utterly useless. Esther, it was gathered, has lost her own mum about a year ago a few days after her first birthday. The poor little girl has since been living with her father, known among residents of the area as Baba Eleja. Baba Eleja, Esther’s dad, later brought in Kehinde, a mother of three, as his wife. He put Esther in the care of his new wife, Kehinde.

Trouble started for the woman on Wednesday, October 31. She wasn’t feeling good and invited a nurse to prescribe drugs for her. It was the nurse that noticed Esther’s boiled hands. The nurse also realised that the little girl was very unhealthy. She sought to know what was responsible for the little girl’s condition and Kehinde allegedly explained that the girl mistakenly put her hands inside a bucket of hot water in the room. Obviously not satisfied with that explanation, the nurse went to inform Kehinde’s neighbours about the strange development.

Many of the neighbours, who had all along suspected that all was not well with little Esther as Kehinde was always beating her, rushed to the room to see the girl. One of the neighbours, who described himself as her father’s kinsman, spoke to the reporter. His words: “When we saw Esther, lying on the floor with her boiled hands, we were moved to tears. We feared that the poor girl might die any moment from then.

We quickly made efforts to rush her to the hospital for treatment. I don’t think Esther was the one that dipped her own hands in the hot water. In fact, if you see that damage done on those hands, you would know that somebody must have dipped those hands in some boiling water. The hands were boiled to the wrist. Even that poor girl wouldn’t be able to use one of the hands again.” Another resident of the area, a woman, said Kehinde never spared the cane on the little girl.

“She is always beating the girl with canes. You can even see scars of the wounds that her canes inflicted on the girl’s body. Since we noticed what happened to Esther, we have moved her away from the woman. Earlier today, when the girl saw her stepmother, she was so terrified that she cried and ran away. That shows she (Kehinde) has been wicked to her. I advise the relatives of the girl’s mother to take her away from her father so that something more terrible than this doesn’t happen to her,” she told the reporter.

When Daily Sun sought to speak with Kehinde in her husband’s one room apartment in Olugbe compound in the community, her husband as well as some of her relatives wanted to prevent the encounter, saying they didn’t want the family’s dirty linen washed in public. Explanations by the reporter that since the matter had gone to the police, it had already gone beyond their private domain, did little to persuade the angry relatives. In fact, at a point, Baba Eleja got angry and rushed to the nearby Langbasa police post where he reported the “intruding” journalist.

Meanwhile, other relatives as well as the landlord of the apartment granted audience to the reporter and urged Kehinde to grant an interview. In the course of the interview, Baba Eleja suddenly materialised with a policeman in tow, apparently to get the ‘busybody’ arrested. But as soon as the police officer discovered the reporter’s identity, he asked the journalist to continue his job.

 He advised the enraged husband to cooperate with him. Amidst verbal invectives being hurled at her by neighbours and some relatives, who believed she did dip Esther’s hands into a pot of steaming water, Kehinde told the reporter her story: “It happened a few weeks ago.

That morning, I noticed that Esther was looking very dull. So, I asked her to come to me and I gave her a potty for her to urinate into. I discovered that the urine was black, which showed that she was sick. So, I didn’t allow her to go to school. That day, I was also bleeding because I just had a miscarriage. After a while, I kept a bowl of very hot water that I wanted to use on myself beside our bed and rushed out to the kitchen. Suddenly, I heard Esther’s piercing cry and I rushed back into the room only to see her struggling with the bowl of hot water.

By the time I could rescue her, she already boiled her two hands. I thought she wanted to drink water because she was eating the rice that I cooked for her and my own children before I left the room. I quickly went to borrow N100 from a neighbour with which I bought some balm that I applied on the hands. I also gave her some drugs for her fever and she soon slept off. “When her father returned from work in the night and noticed what happened to her, he beat the hell out of me, in spite of my condition. It took the intervention of our landlord before he left me.

Since then, Esther has been staying with me at home. She has not been going to school and I’ve been doing my best to treat her. “But a few days ago, I invited a nurse, who is also a neighbour to attend to me. As a result of the miscarriage, I have been feeling very weak and I have lost a lot of blood. The nurse came and I was lying on the bed. Esther was resting on a mattress close to the bed.

The nurse came to attend to me but when she saw Esther, she looked worried and asked what happened to her. When I explained, she asked why we didn’t take her to hospital yet and I said I didn’t have the money and that I was expecting that Esther’s father would do that. “The nurse promptly attended to me and hurriedly left after examining Esther’s boiled hands for two or three times. It wasn’t long after she left that a crowd of neighbours broke into our room to see Esther.

They soon pounced on me and started beating me. It took the intervention of policemen, who were invited by some of them, to rescue me from the mob. I would have been lynched. They thought that I deliberately dipped her hands into boiling water. I didn’t do that at all. I have always been taking care of Esther as if I were her mother. Even people call me Mama Esther because of the way I treat her. I couldn’t have done such a terrible thing to her.”