Boko Haram: IBB, Governors of Borno & Gombe, Jerry Gana figured in the crisis

“Peace is restored and we are counting dead corpse now”, stated the spoke person of the Nigerian Police, Emma Ojukwu as he spoke to Ukpakareports.com regarding the aftermath of the crisis.

The bloodbath and the extra judicial killings that recently swept across northern Nigeria in the wake of the Boko Haram led attack on government infrastructure has now been discovered to be a politically based fracas rather that the originally believed notion of a religiously based conflict. Ukpakareports.com was informed reliably of the behind the curtains permutations that eventually resulted to the bloody fracas. The crisis, as gathered, emanated from the historic riff that has existed between the Northern minorities [in likes of the Middle Belters and the non-Hausas] and the Northern conservatives [in the likes the Hausas]. Information available to our investigators identified the latest attack by the Boko Haram group as merely a political destabilization tool used against the Northern conservatives by the Northern minorities and vive versa. The foregrounds of the historic battle between the Northern minorities and the Northern conservatives gave way to the tussle to wrestle power away from the Northern minorities and also gave it its anchoring and launching pad. It was also cited the attack as having its aims at the government of Yar'dua and the 2011 residential campaign.

Also, sources who revealed to our correspondents of Jerry Gana's bailing of Mohammed Yusuf following his November 2008's arrest by the Nigerian Police Force [NPF], also revealed that the political aspirations of a few Northern elites precipitated the attack by followers of Mohammed Yusuf. To this, the spoke person for the NPF, Emma Ojukwu told Ukpakareports.com that “the courts gave him bail not the police. We don't know why the courts keep giving him bail. I am not aware it was Jerry Gana that bailed him in his November 2008 arrest”.

One of the sources who is a Kano State indigene that reside in Jos noted that the political aspirations of the likes of the former president of Nigeria, Ibrahim B. Babangida and the Governors of Borno and Gombe State played the key role in sparking the attack. The Governor of Borno State, Gov. Sheriff, has the interest and intention to mount his wife as the next governor of Borno State while Babangida has the intention of mounting his son as the next governor of Niger State. The same is the case in Gombe State where Governor Goje intends to mount his son to the seat of Governor.

Augmenting this, the Boko Haram groups, who have had relationships with both sides of the political divide in the North, have enjoyed a healthy financial relationship with both sides. It is through this making that the Boko Haram group found a sponsorship hand from the purses of the Northern conservatives, according source in Borno.

As learnt, the Northern conservatives found a partner and a shared interest in the leadership of Boko Haram. Both group shared grievances towards the Yar'dua administration. The Northern conservatives wanted the Yar'dua administration's attention against the upcoming presidential elections of 2011 while the leadership of Boko Haram wanted the financial gains or booty to come from it. Also, the northern conservatives are said to be unhappy with Yar'dua's formula of sharing the federal booty. According to them, Yar'dua's administration focuses selfishly on Kano and Katsina State as the recipients of his democratic goodwill. For this reason, the northern conservatives found him wanting. In addition, the northern conservatives in line with the Arewa Consultative Forum [ACF] upped the ante against the perceived proliferation of elected political officials out of the northern minorities in States like Plateau State. With this, the northern conservatives gave the nod to the leadership of Boko Haram.

However other equally credible sources have pointed to the transverse as being the case. They indicated that northern minorities were in fact the ones sponsoring the Boko Haram group in the latest attack that spread across Northern Nigeria. In their take, the political heavy weights within the northern minority tapped on the leadership of Boko Haram to heat the polity in order to induce civil unrest within the northern region – under the cloak of a religious crisis. The idea was to undermine the Yar'dua administration in time for the 2011 elections.

Ukpakareports.com is not certain who may be the exact sponsors of the Boko Haram group but the financially rich lifestyle of Mohammed Yusuf points to the certainty of his group being sponsored by a financial heavy weight. This is as sources have reported that Yusuf takes in N500,000 daily while schooling his children in western countries outside Nigeria. In turn, speculations over the source of Yusuf's unexplained wealth have become abound. Our correspondent's attempt to reach the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC] as to whether the Commission may have developed an interest in the unexplained wealth yielded no answer.