Arrested Boko Haram Cell Leader, Bama, Dies

DAMATURU, June 22, (THEWILL) - Arrested former Nigerian soldier and suspected Boko Haram cell leader alleged to have orchestrated the bombing of Police Headquarters, Abuja and that of Saint Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State, Habeeb Bama, has died.

“He was critically wounded when we tried to arrest him and he resisted,” a source confirmed to THEWILL. “He died this morning from the gunshot wounds he sustained. He could not make it having lost so much blood in his bid to engage the Joint Task Force in a shootout,”

Bama, an erstwhile Army private, was implicated in the Madalla and Police Headquarters blasts by the confessional statements of captured spokesperson of the sect, Abul Qaqa; and he was subsequently declared wanted by the State Security Service (SSS) in February.

A native of Bama in Borno State — from where the present-day Yobe was carved out — and Kanuri by tribe, Bama was arrested on Thursday in the northern city of Damaturu, Yobe State, after emerging vanquished in a gunfight with men of the Joint Task Force (JTF).