A Borno State-based cleric and Director General, Centre for Justice
on Religion and Ethnicity in Nigeria, Rev. Kallamu Musa-Dikwa, has
revealed that Boko Haram was created by three governors from the North
shortly after return of democracy to the country in 1999.
In an interview with Punch, Musa-Dikwa claimed to have sent
messages to personalities and media organisations in Nigeria, informing
them of a clandestine plan going on in the region to build and unleash
the militants on the country.
“The creation of Boko Haram started in 2000. I sent some
messages and statements to some people and media organisations then.
When Olusegun Obasanjo became the President of Nigeria in 1999, he
appointed service chiefs – all from the North Central zone – Benue,
Plateau, Kogi and Kwara states. Incidentally, all of them were
Christians. The development prompted three northern governors to come up
with the idea of creating and raising Islamic militants to fight for
Islam because they felt Obasanjo did not appoint their own (what they
described as pure Hausa/Fulani northerners as service chiefs). From
there, they created Islamic militants. Those governors contributed N100m
each to buy working equipment, uniforms and so on for the militants.
Immediately, Nigeria started experiencing religious crisis.
“After they contributed the money, those organised Islamic
militants started religious crisis in Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Zamfara,
saying they wanted Sharia. The aim was to intimidate and oppress the
Christians. They started attacking churches and killing people. Any time
elections took place and they did not favour them, they would burn
churches and attack their members. They never went to offices of
political parties or the Independent National Electoral Commission
office to carry out their attacks.
“On February 18, 2006 in Maiduguri, those boys came out and
said they wanted Sharia law and that a governor in the state then did
not cooperate with them. And because of a cartoon that was designed in
Denmark in 2006, they protested and burnt down 66 churches in the state
and killed many Christian men, women and children. After that, they
started moving from house to house, church to church, yet nobody talked –
we were the only ones talking or raising the alarm about what was
happening”, the clergyman is quoted by the PUNCH on Sunday.
He added that in July 2009, the insurgents “burnt down 27
churches and killed many Christians. At that time, they did not touch
any Muslim man or woman. They only killed security agents and
Christians.
“From 2009 till 2014, they were attacking churches – going from
house to house, slaughtering Christians. They started attacking people,
including Muslims in 2014 when they felt their leaders had deceived
them by not backing them to fight ‘infidels’ in the North. Four of our
reverends were slaughtered in 2009.”
When the newspaper asked him if he had evidence to back up his claims, the man responded:
“We have over 20 VCDs recorded by Islamic scholars and they said if a
northerner did not get to power, they were going to fight Christians in
Nigeria. A scholar once preached and incited Muslim youths not to be
civil if the President of Nigeria was not a Muslim. We have the videos –
he preached in Hausa. He alleged that all the former Muslim Heads of
State that died, including Umaru Yar’Adua, were killed by the infidels
and therefore, they would not allow a non-Muslim to lead Nigeria.”
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