Boko Haram: DSS Invites Sheriff, Exonerates Ihejirika Written by Karls Tsokar. • Says Australian Negotiator, Stephen Davis, Lied ALL seems not to be going well with erstwhile Governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, as the Department of State Security (DSS) has invited him to answer questions regarding allegations of his involvement with the Boko Haram sect. At a press briefing yesterday in Abuja, spokesperson of the DSS, Marilyn Ogar said Sheriff had honoured two previous invitations and is being invited by the service for the third time to clarify some of the lingering allegations made against him. The former governor has been invited twice by this service and the service has also invited him again. I want us to know that there is nothing this service has done, when it comes to investigation and we dont bring to the public through the media. We shouldnt allow people to use our liberal nature to perpetrate all kinds of evil against our society, she said. Meanwhile, the DSS has also said Stephen Davis, the Australian who claimed to have come to negotiate with the terrorists, lied. But it exonerated former Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Azubuike Ihejirika (retired) of complicity as alleged by. On Davis who brought the allegations against Ihejirika in the first place during an interview published in the Cable, an online medium last month, Ogar said Davis a self appointed Australian negotiator on Boko Haram lied. She faulted the statement credited to Davis that an official of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) who handled the funding of the Nyanya bombing, is an uncle to three of the arrested suspects undergoing interrogation. For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state that of the six suspects in our custody, none is related to anybody by blood. In other words, none is a cousin or nephew to any other and only two suspects namely Yau Saidu and Anas Isah, have ever lived together at the makeshift clinic called Kishi Clinic operated by Rufai Tsiga, a co-mastermind of the bomb blast who is still at large, Ogar said. On the allegation against Ihejirika, she said it is wicked to link a man who has sacrificed so much for his country to such an enterprise, especially considering that he led the fight against the insurgency while in service. Its absolutely uncharitable for us as Nigerians to accuse somebody who laid down his life in pursuing these people to accept that he can be in any way associated with the same group he was pursuing. The military, in collaboration with this service, succeeded in ending their activities in Kano, Okene and other parts of Nigeria and pushed them to Sambissa forest. Is it the same man we want to say, because he is no longer in officer, that is involved? I think this is wicked. This should not be the way we should reward people who lay down their lives to secure the country for us, she added. Meanwhile, for the first time since he was extradited from Sudan, Aminu Ogwuche, the alleged co-mastermind of the Nyanya bombing, spoke to the media yesterday as he claimed that he was not in the country at the time the act was committed. He said he had no previous encounter with any terrorist group, but once sent money to the widows of some terrorists who were killed in Maiduguri out of sympathy. When asked if he had done the same for the widows of the men killed in churches by the insurgents, Ogwuche said he is a philanthropist and has being assisting different people but did not think of those categories of widows. Although he confirmed that he was arrested but jumped bail, he failed to explain why he did that nor why he deserted the Army, saying: I left the Army because I wanted to go and study. I studied Islamic studies and was a member of a pressure group in the UK, but Im not a terrorist. The Maiduguri branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had earlier yesterday given the Federal Government a 21-day ultimatum to initiate criminal proceedings before the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Hague against Sheriff and Ihejirika over the their alleged complicity in the Boko Insurgency. Addressing a news conference at the Shettima Liberty Hall Bar Centre, in Maiduguri, the NBA branch chairman, Abdulwasiu Alfa said no Nigerian is above the law as justice must not only be seen to be done, but must be manifestly seen to be done.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 05:25:55 +0000
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