IMPORTANT UPDATE🚨: Key takeaways from the security meeting in Ogun State convened by Governor @DapoAbiodunCON today.
1. 70 foreigners, mostly from Niger, Chad and Sudan have been arrested in the last couple of days. Those foreigners have no means of ID, they can’t speak English and they couldn’t provide clear explanations for their presence in Ogun State. They will be processed for deportation through the Nigeria Immigration Service.
2. Ogun State Government will begin the documentation of ALL undocumented foreign nationals working with multinational companies operating in Ogun State.
3. Non-indigenes entering the state for the first time will now undergo proper screening by their community leaders. They will be asked to present their purpose in the state and means of livelihood before they would be accepted to live anywhere in the state. This is to ensure they are not used to orchestrate violence.
4. Law enforcement agencies have been directed to pay special attention to scavengers in the state and immediately arrest any who breaks the law. The meeting deliberated extensively on the activities of scrap dealers and scavengers who may now be aiding criminal networks. It was noted that they now pose a greater security threat than before.
5. Governor Dapo Abiodun directed the Police to immediately move to areas such as “Zanga” in Ijebu Ode and similar enclaves of scavengers across the state and clear them out. He warned that properties used by criminals will henceforth be seized by the state Government.
6. On Ajebo in Obafemi Owode LGA security concerns:
He noted that security agents have visited the area and security operations will continue in the area.
The State Forest reserves have been commissioned to comb the forests across th state and ensure criminals are not using them as hideouts.
7. On Illegal mining:
The Governor noted that the government is aware that some miners operate as miscreants and it’s working with security agencies to flush criminals out of mining sites and forest reserves.
8. The Governor cautioned traditional rulers (Obas and Baales) against allocating government land to strangers, that any traditional ruler found culpable would be held accountable for undermining state interest.
9. Governor Dapo Abiodun said the meeting was convened in response to the country’s current security climate, noting that as Nigeria’s industrial capital, Ogun receives more than 5 million daily commuters, making it crucial for government to heighten vigilance.
10. The Governor appealed to residents to actively support community policing efforts by providing credible information to security agencies.
11. He commended security agencies for their cooperation and synergy, which he said has contributed significantly to the peace Ogun State currently enjoys.
12. The Governor lauded President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for stabilizing the economy and commended him and the security agencies for the prompt rescuing of kidnapped victims in Kwara and Niger states.
We met with security chiefs in Ogun State today to assess the level of security in the state and the country as it relates to us. As we often say, the best time to prepare for war is during a time of peace. Ogun State is currently regarded as one of the most peaceful states in Nigeria, if not the most peaceful, and it is important that we continue to protect and sustain that standing.
To maintain this position, we must stay proactive, strengthen our preparedness, and put in place the right measures to mitigate anything that could threaten our peace and stability. This is not the first meeting of its kind, but it is a particularly important one, which is why we convened it today.
These formed part of our remarks as we engaged with the service chiefs this morning, reaffirming our shared commitment to keeping Ogun State safe, peaceful, and secure for all.
#BuildingOurFutureTogether
We met with security chiefs in Ogun State today to assess the level of security in the state and the country as it relates to us. As we often say, the best time to prepare for war is during a time of peace. Ogun State is currently regarded as one of the most peaceful states in… pic.twitter.com/RWonsqgljK
TonyeBarcanista: Let us be clear my brother. In the NSC and every other federal body that is chaired by the President, the VP is the statutory Vice chairman, not the President's representative. Of course as VC he presides in the absence of the Chairman/President. But he doesn't represent the President in the bodies. Kindly check the Third Schedule, Part I, Item K (Paragraph 25) of the CFRN (as amended).
Therefore his participation in meetings is not at the president's discretion but at official convenience and availability.
Once again, go back and read what I wrote at the beginning.
The Security Council has members that must be present or have representatives at every meeting and it has members that might attend or not attend a meeting.
As I wrote before; the vice president or deputy governor often do not attend meetings, but have you ever seen a security council meeting without the president/governor or his representative and representatives of the army, navy, air force or police??
There was nowhere that I wrote that the vice president or deputy governor needed an invitation from the president or governor. Check and make sure that you are not responding to the wrong post.
This is simple English.
And as I said before, that's why the deputy governor is not in that picture and the vice president is not in that video.
🤣 People are trying hard to spread their favourite conspiracy theories (theories without any facts or evidence) and people with competing fake theories are fighting.
Tell me about your relationship with Mohammed Yusuf who founded Boko Haram in 2002 and was its spiritual leader until he was killed in 2009.
He heard about me through one of his students. According to late Mohammed Yusuf my life story and how I met and married my wife within 5 days was remarkable to him. He invited me to his house several times, we ate together and kept in touch. He tolerated me so well that he told me not to book an appointment anytime I wanted to see him for anything.
I was a frequent guest to his house with my midget asking questions and I later asked him if he will allow me to write a book on his activities, he said yes. I became known to many of his lieutenants and I was not surprised when late Mohammed Yusuf asked me to work with the Public Affairs unit of his sect to setup an Al Mizzan style newspaper which he wanted me to be editor.
At first I was so excited but my wife cautioned me and I later insisted on three (3) things: (a) that I wanted total editorial control (b) that I must introduce columnists that do not share his ideology (c) and I wanted to be a partner in the project. He never got back to me on that but our relationship remained very cordial.
On the day I was arrested Tuesday 29th July 2009 he desperately wanted to see me few days later he was captured and executed by several mobile police men behind my detention room along side many other youths and his followers.
Do you think the extra-judicial killing of Mohammed Yusuf led to the insurgency by the Boko Haram group?
I think the extra-judicial killing of their leader is symbolic because it served as a proof to the hundreds of sect members and other innocent bystanders that were picked up since 2009 till date and executed in the same manner late Yusuf was killed.
Apparently Extra Judicial killings have never stopped till date. If Independent minded investigative journalists will be allowed to operate in the state they will reveal mass graves of thousands of youths some of them women and children killed in cold blood in Maiduguri. Many have taken arms today not necessarily because they subscribe to the ideology of the sect but because of the despair they find themselves occasioned by the abuse of the rule of law and the constant denial of any form of injustice by the security agencies even in the face of documentary evidence.
As one who understands the issues around the sect, Is the Boko Haram Sect linked to Algeria’s al Qaeda?
Yes they are in touch and in some kind of partnership and collaborations, and I think that relationship is growing.
Shehu Sani, a human right activist said you can call for a truce between government and the Boko Haram sect.. why you?
I can’t speak for Shehu Sani but what I know is only God can bring an end to this crisis and no one person with access can do it. If government is not committed and sincere what ever access a person has will be lost. I also want to say here categorically that the sect have always shown readiness to talk whenever I approached them but the people in government, I sense have frequently laid up too much confidence in their ability to subdue the insurgents militarily.
You see total lack of enthusiasm and absorbing obsession with pecuniary interests. Moreover, top politicians seem not to find it acceptable that the purveyor of such strategic mediatory offers was me. Last year we were in the middle of developing a blueprint for action to resolving this whole mess that if government can release unconditionally women and children in various detention locations and treat the detained in a civilized manner for all to see, the sect may consider a partial ceasefire where unarmed civilians will be spared. The government officials stone walled, arguing that there were no women and children in detention, the window collapsed. So I was helpless.
You have extensively covered the conflict between the government and Islamist sect Boko Haram, is your life under threat?
My life has always been on the line since 2009. It is not easy dealing with the insurgents as a journalist, not every thing they give you can be news and the slightest change in your report by your editor who does not know how erratic they can be to you, that may cause you, your life. The same thing with the authorities who always wanted me to report only what they want Nigerians to know. I have been invited severally by top security officials to be wired during some of my interviews in order to arrest them.
I was put under a lot of pressure to betray my sources. My refusal to do any of these things therefore was interpreted by many as unpatrotism and cold complicity. I can assure you it has never been the same for me and my family after my arrest in 2009. My first daughter who is 10 years old once came home in 2010 to say some kids will not play with her because their parents told them her father was Boko Haram.
Before 2009 I was an attractive bride in journalism in the North but in the last few years I could no longer get proper employment (in cases where I get the chance rivalry and suspicion trail my everyday activities) many media houses have suddenly realised that I am not a graduate and my nearly 13 years journalism experience no longer count in giving me proper employment that is in itself a threat to a husband and a father to four kids.
Why did you flee Nigeria for the United Arab Emirates, Dubai?
I think the revelation that I came to the UAE was a mistake on the part of my colleagues. Since the threat to my life intensified after my article on the questionable ceasefire declared by one Abdulaziz (whom Abubakar Shekau has disowned) in February 2013, it became absolutely necessary for me to flee. I cannot remain in Nigeria just because God saved my life several times. I have to flee not to seek asylum but as a law abiding citizen of the world and open a grocery shop and support my family whom I feel I have exposed a lot with the constant trauma I caused them as a result of my work as a reporter in Nigeria.
You once said the government’s security agents have accused you of being a member of the sect, again I ask, are you a Boko Haram member?
Even as a child in the 80’s I have seen a lot of misgivings towards me. The moment my parents and every senior member of my community realized my disdain for formal education they lashed at me. People believe that every person must go to school to succeed in life, no one thinks that by learning handcraft or any other skill acquisition you can succeed.
I was stigmatized and many parents will warn their kids not to come close to me. Also as a young convert to Islam in the 90’s till date, I experienced all kinds of stigma by many christians, of course many Muslims will react violently if some one renounces the Islamic faith but both violence and stigma can kill or break any person.
Also as a journalist, I have seen a lot of violence and stigma because of my rare professional access to a dreaded sect and to many, this is wrong, they want me to work like any other journalist who depends on press releases by the Joint Task Force (setup by government to curb terrorism in Nigeria) to report the crisis. My exclusives was never seen by many as a journalistic feat instead all I get are mere unfounded allegations of being one of them. I don’t believe in violence.
Every Sunday I pray that my mother who is always among the first to go to church will come back home alive and safe. To answer your question directly, I am not a member of Boko Haram and never will be.
Do you agree for Amnesty to Boko Haram as proposed by some politicians and religious leaders?
If you read my last interviews with Abul Qaqa, he has always said that if amnesty means forgiveness then they are the ones that should forgive government for the wrong done to them in 2009.
According to them many Nigerians don’t see what they undergo instead it is only what they do that is easily shown in the media. And I think issues as sensitive as amnesty suppose to have been tabled first through a trusted mediator who has access to the leadership of the sect before you take it to the media.
The sect as I understand heard about the amnesty on the pages of newspapers. Abang, how would you feel if you heard about your marriage proposition with a man from a third party and not from the man? I think you will feel irritated at best.
State Governor, Isa Yuguda has said, Political Boko Haram behind rejection of Amnesty, do you agree?
The question Mallam Shekau has spoken on the amnesty. Is he the political Boko Haram?
How many types of Boko Haram Groups do we currently have? As Isa Yuguda has said there is political Boko Haram.
Of course there are many elements that hide under the cover of the group to carry out all kinds of atrocities. There are some that were once members but they have been cut off by the main group but I don’t believe there is any faction. Abdulaziz that is in contact with the Borno Government insisted that he is speaking on behalf of Mallam Shekau even when Shekau denied that, he never called himself a factional leader. Even the Ansaru remained imaginary to me, because one of the main criteria for any Jihadi armed group is to have an Amir, leader. So who is the leader of any of these factions? At least many will know the leader and his antecedent when he was a loyal follower of late Mohammed Yusuf or Shekau?
What is that one thing you believe is driving the Boko Haram ideology and how commited are they?
The state of lawlessness and injustice have not changed in Nigeria for many decades now and it serves as the pillar for the ideology of resistance. They are committed and believe without doubts that they are God’s warriors.
You once said the way out of the conflict is for a trusted and independent body to ferry moderate clerics to a third friendly country with the leadership of Boko Haram… Are you speaking the mind of the sect? Because they (Boko Haram) had requested former head of state Muhammadu Buhari, to lead the peace deal to hold in Saudi Arabia?
First of all, the sect never said Buhari should be a mediator or mentioned going to Saudi. It is the same Abdulaziz group that declared ceasefire that made the pronouncement on Buhari and co. When they called me to dispatch this same message to the media, I asked the caller several questions about who he was and why haven’t the sect reached me through the usual source. He could not give me answers so he called ignorant journalists that spread his message like wild fire.
I am sorry to say this, if the sect knows where to find General Buhari (someone I respect a lot) they will make an attempt on his life. To them, any retired and servicing soldier, police, politician or civil servant is an infidel that deserves to be killed. So how can the same sect with such an ideology listen to General Buhari, the Governor of Borno state or any other politician or the Sultan? The average member of this sect see all these people whether they are muslims or not as ‘livil corpses’. For God sake have we not been listening to this people in the last couple of years?. Am I the only one listening to them? It seems the sect have been more consistent with their message than the Federal and state governments involve in this conflict.
Your second question about going to a third friendly nation to have an ideological debate with the sect. For me, I will always maintain that since this is a problem of doctrine then it must be tackled through a coherent, profound counter doctrine. There has not been any concrete ideological intervention by the appropriate authorities only military intervention. If the sect members say the Qur’an allows them to kill Christians and fellow muslim security agents, politicians, teachers, vaccinators and opposing clerics. I think it is wise for Muslims that disagree with them to understand their arguments clearly and bring a superior one to counter it, and I don’t think you can hold such a debate before the eyes of the JTF. It can best be done with the assurances of a third friendly nation whom the sect can trust and the clerics of this nation may serve along side other international clerics as arbiters. I think such an informal dialogue will not only make us understand the reasons of this conflict but what is feeding it and it will provide us with the best possible way to approach dialogue or amnesty.
President Goodluck Jonathan did describe Boko Haram as a “Ghost” when he visited Borno.. do you agree they are ghosts?
They are human beings like us. I told you about my contact with many of them. So am I in contact with ghosts? When I single handedly facilitated the Dr. Datti Ahmed’s attempts to dialogue by the special Grace of God, did I have meetings with ghosts? Do Nigerians believe in ghosts?
Who is the true and real leader of Boko Haram?
The sect has always had one leader and nobody within the group or outside the group has ever disputed that.
What do you make of the killings of innocent women and Children by the Boko Haram sect?
It is shameful and sad!
Do you think the Nigerian Government is prepared to put to an end the insurgency in the North?
How they will do that remains to be seen
What is your biggest regret?
Our leaders that are responsible in resolving this conflict are too arrogant to learn and study their opponent. You can only solve a problem if you understand in the first place, and so far, all I see in the media and amongst religious and political leaders is a fatal guessing game and Nigerians continue to die in their ignorance
What is your recommendation for the security agencies and the sect to bring about sustainable peace?
The sect must understand that Islam teaches muslims that forgiveness is the highest level of strength while revenge is the highest level of weakness. Our Leaders must also be truthful to Nigerians and deal with these security challenges without bringing in the usual corruption they employ in every facet of our national life, at least they should know that human lives are involved here.
Mercy Abang is a journalist and popular internet personality (I believe that she was once a member of Nairaland). She interviewed Ahmad Salkida in 2013.
“I am not a member of Boko Haram” – Interview with Abang Mercy
The Conservations series with Abang Mercy spotlights a freelance Journalist, Ahmad Salkida who has extensively covered the sect.
He talks about his relationship with Boko Haram, ties with the late Leader, Mohammed Yusuf and how the Boko Haram sect have been more consistent with their message than the Federal Government.
You are the only Nigerian, publicly known to have direct links to the leadership of Boko haram in your line of duty as a journalist. Therefore, who is Ahmad Salkida?
I am from Biu local government area in what is now the troubled Borno state. I grew up in that peaceful and homogenous part of Nigeria. I was born a christian from a christian family, and as a young primary school pupil in the early 80’s I would sneak into gardens and climb Mango or cashew trees while my mates were in school. To me then, the school system was an infringement on my understanding of personal liberty. I feel, if someone has the capacity to learn in a few months or years why subject the person to six (6) years primary school, six (6) years secondary education and four (4) years in the university. However, I read many of my mother’s novels. She had hundreds if not thousands of books. I managed to go to several schools to please my parents but I ended up not writing the secondary school leaving exams. But I was a teacher to many of my friends and peers at the time, and I helped dozens of graduates with their final year project work.
I knew within me that I can be a good writer, a good researcher and a good investigative journalist but that was tantamount to wishing for the impossibility since everyone had to go to school to achieve that. I also had an obsession to leave Nigeria to Europe or America to live my dreams at a very early age. In the 90’s, when my mates were in the university, I was briefly a Marxist, a free thinker and in 1997 I finally embraced the Islamic faith on my own volition. At that time I had two (2) completed manuscripts which my mentor, late Dr. Jibrin Bala Mohammed, an associate professor in journalism encouraged me to write.
In early 2000 I moved to Abuja with the hope that I could get a publisher for my books. I was sent out of my relative’s house because they feared that I could convert their son to Islam. So I got a job as a night guard in Wuse zone 2. In the night I worked as ‘Mai guard’ while in the day time I was called a brilliant and aspiring writer. It was at that point that I met Obiora Chukwumba through Uche Ezechukwu, two wonderful Igbo gentlemen and one of Nigeria ‘s finest set of journalists that I always remain thankful to.
Obiora, the pioneer managing editor of Insider Weekly Magazine gave me my first job in February 2001 as a reporter, after a few reporting assignments I did for Uche. I did not present the usual smart curriculum vitae; mine was just a Primary School Certificate but Obiora believed that information that is unique and refreshing from someone like me was more valuable than the frequent parading of cute ivory tower diplomas that offer so much ego and polish with no substance. I worked as a reporter for several newspapers in Abuja and Maiduguri.
I didn’t have a degree like many of my colleagues therefore I could not afford to wait for press releases and interviews. I was always looking for scoops or doing my development reporting to survive the competition with graduates in the news room. I was trained most especially by Obiora that every major news outbreak frequently starts as a signal which is most often ignored, sometimes even by acclaimed journalist. As a reporter for Uche Ezechukwu’s New Sentinel in 2006 I pleaded with Emmanual Yawe, the managing editor to see the news value of my first interview with late Mohammed Yusuf. I was eager to tell the world the influence he was having on thousands of youths in the area.
Two parents had earlier approached me in my area to talk to their kids about their new found obsession with the teachings of late Mohammed Yusuf that made many youths to abandon school or resign from civil service, etc. I was seen by many, though not as a role model for education, but for hard work and commitment to whatever I set to achieve in life. I began to write exclusively on the sect and painstakingly built and developed a network of invaluable sources within the group.
In 2009, you were exiled from Maiduguri to Abuja by the then Borno State governor Ali Modu Sherrif. What was your offense?
First of all, I was not the favorite of my colleagues in the Government House Press corps and I could count the number of times I visited the government house as a reporter in the state. I worked alone and focused mainly on development stories for the Daily Trust from July 2007. I was close to late Mohammed Yusuf by then. Obviously, I was the only journalist he knew very well. Whenever I was free from work I will attend one of his preaching sessions.
Of course many Muslims do that especially if you are the type that always seeks knowledge. During the sect’s major altercation with a special security outfit setup by Ali Modu Sheriff that led to the shooting of twenty (20) sect members I was given exclusive access by the sect to the victims by their leader, my reports were very detailed and different. I also reported severally for the Daily Trust about the build up to the war by the sect but I guess that crisis in July 2009 was never meant to be prevented by the government of President Umar Yar’adua.
When the crisis broke I was the only reporter who could go into the sect’s enclave, even security agents were eager to hear from me what I saw when the sect held sway for over three (3) days. On Tuesday the 29th of July I received a call from late Mohammed Yusuf to meet him in the afternoon of that day for an important interview. As a journalist I felt I should inform the authorities. I met the Commissioner of Police in the state, Christopher Dega. I was in his office that morning and he referred me to his deputy commissioner.
In the office of the deputy commissioner and in the presence of the commander of Mobile Police unit, one Ahmadu and James Bwala, a reporter with Tribune newspaper I told them about my intention to interview the sect leader and I said I just wanted them to be aware. James was courageous enough and volunteered to follow me but he was discouraged by the officers. I also complained of harassment by the Mobile Police and soldiers during the course of my work and the senior officers assured me that they will send a radio message for me to be allowed to do my work. I left the police headquarters and headed to my house. I needed to tell my wife about the risk I was going to take.
At then, the banks were closed and I was surprised to see the famous Oasis bakery in Maiduguri selling bread in the middle of a war. Sadly I had only fourty (40) naira on me which could not buy a loaf of bread then I saw my childhood friend and school mate Umar Kadafur, who was the serving chairman of my local government area going into the government house I followed him and when I was standing with my friend and playfully struggling with him to give me some money, one Yusuf in the office of the director of press dragged me into the office of the Chief Security Officer to the Governor, insisting that the governor’s aide wanted to see my face for the first time.
The aide wanted to know from me why I did not shave my beards and lower my trousers below the ankle to avoid the wrath of the security agents. I then, told him that it was wrong for security agents to brand innocent people that wear beards as Boko Haram and often times killing people on account of that. He, also asked me whether or not I was abducted by the sect members for a while and released.
I put the record straight that, I only ran into a mob together with the current chairman of the NUJ in the state Abba Kakami and thereafter I was left off the hook when the sect members were convinced that the brown apron I was wearing carried an inscription of Daily Trust and also one of the sect unit commanders recognized me. Sadly for me, the CSO did not like my guts and my style of reporting. In the presence of one Hayatudeen Mohammed, a permanent secretary in the state, he ordered for my arrest, calling my crime ‘counter intelligence.’
At the Government House I was assaulted by the mobile Police Constable Sani Abubakar, I was made to lie down with my face down instantly I urinated in my pants when two mobile police men contemplated who was going to pull the trigger. Thank God I am alive today. I clearly heard the CSO ordering the police not to shoot me at the government House that “Oga” does not want to see a corpse here. Surprising till today none of the nearly twenty (20) reporters present at the scene reported how I was assaulted instead they all reported thereafter that I was treated well and that I was held in protective custody for my safety.
I was then driven to the Police Headquarters in the state where I was kept in a cell with fifty eight (58) others. After spending thirty (30) hours in the cell and about fourty eight (48) hours without food or water. I was then allowed to wash up the urine that had dried up on my pants and relieved myself of my running stomach. My cell mates, some of whom were members of the sect while some are innocent bystanders were being called out and executed one by one, everyone was waiting for his turn.
Well to be fair to Daily Trust and the NUJ, they pleaded for my release. I think that was where the first mistake happened, if they were sure that I am a journalist they should have condemned my arrest and detention and demanded my release and demand even an apology. To have entered a plea on my behalf was like making a submission of guilt on my part, which created a lot of doubts to many persons and made me to lose interest in everything around me. For me, I believe three things helped me; Christopher Dega, the commissioner of police (who is alive today) was reluctant to carry out the order to execute me, a mole within the Boko Haram had also confirmed my story that I am just a journalist, and I learnt recently that the then Deputy Governor Adamu Dibal worked tirelessly to plead for my life from Ali Modu Sheriff. I was then ordered to leave my state immediately for my own safety by the Borno State Government.
Shekau was the brand ambassador of Boko Haram. Long before social media turned everyone into a broadcaster, between 2009 and 2015, he was already chasing clout with the dedication of a full-time influencer. He demanded regular video appearances and, in the process, barked orders to members of his media unit.
His men would rush to contact what he called “kafiri mai fa’ida” (useful infidel) — a reporter, in a position to ventilate his rage, often at cross with the government. Then, like an eager artist waiting for his song to hit the charts, Shekau would hunch over his radio, tuning in to different channels and every bulletin and commentary about himself.
Former associates say he was so obsessed with staying in the headlines that if the world dared to ignore him for too long, he’d summon his camera crew again. Sometimes he threatened the Nigerian government, other times he lectured the United Nations, or made appearances whenever claims of his death were made. Petty, paranoid, and painfully addicted to attention, Shekau wasn’t just a warlord; he was a man at war with silence.
According to two sources close to him, Shekau reportedly celebrated each time a new bounty was placed on his head. To him, the growing list of rewards signified his notoriety and influence. His infamy, however, extended far beyond Nigeria’s borders. Known for masterminding bombings and mass abductions, Shekau became one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, drawing international condemnation and pursuit. The United States government offered a $7 million reward for information leading to his capture or death, highlighting global concern over his violent activities. In 2012, the Nigerian government also announced a reward of more than $300,000 for his arrest. Additionally, in February 2018, the Nigerian Army separately offered a ₦3 million cash reward for information leading to his arrest.
The feared became fearful
The years that followed bled into decline. Sources close to the late Boko Haram leader said he was haunted not only by the war he started but also by a frailty he could not escape. According to them, he suffered epileptic-like seizures that often struck in waves, usually triggered by bad news — reports of his fighters being defeated or the deaths of his most trusted lieutenants.
HumAngle spoke to several associates and eyewitnesses who recalled moments when his body convulsed uncontrollably during prayers, sermons, and Shura meetings — violent episodes that seemed to mirror the turmoil within him. However, one of his childhood friends recalls that he never had seizures whenever he played football as a teenager. “It was in his 20s that I learnt about this condition he suffered,” he said, adding that Shekau’s seizure seems to be a disease whose severity grew with his age.
In the final days, as ISWAP forces closed in from different directions, he reportedly suffered up to two seizures in a single day. The attacks, according to those familiar with his condition, were likely provoked by suffocating anxiety and dread — the realisation that his end was imminent. It was this unpredictable vulnerability, they said, that made him increasingly reclusive. He avoided human contact, preferring long stretches of solitude deep in the Sambisa wilderness with those closest to him, where silence offered both camouflage and relief.
That night, when ISWAP breached Sambisa, as explosions echoed across the forest, Shekau and a few bodyguards retreated. ISWAP’s negotiators pressured on loudspeakers, promising safety if he surrendered. Inside the last line of defence, the exchange was brief, and his choice was final.
A small band of loyalists with Shekau that witnessed his final moments included one unlikely fellow, Abraham Amuta, from Benue State, North Central Nigeria, who was a graduate of Plateau State Polytechnic and deployed for his National Youth Service in Borno. He was abducted alongside Moses Oyeleke, a pastor with the Living Faith Church in Maiduguri, on April 10, 2019. Moses and Abraham were travelling to Chibok in southern Borno for Christian evangelism when Shekau’s men abducted them. The group placed a ransom on their heads. The ransom was paid. But Abraham, in a dramatic turn, reportedly turned his back on freedom, refusing to leave with his compatriot. This unusual act brought him close to Shekau, who counted him among his closest aides.
Abraham, who served in both Boko Haram’s media unit and as Shekau’s Chief Security Officer (CSO), was reported to have fought alongside him until his death.
Shekau was believed to be about 51 years old at the time of his death in 2021, according to accounts from his friends and family members.
After Shekau’s death, Sambisa did not celebrate. It heaved a sigh. The forest embraced his loss as though reclaiming what was once stolen. ISWAP moved quickly to consolidate control, absorbing or executing Shekau’s surviving men. Some defected to Lake Chad; others drifted to join armed groups in North Central and North West Nigeria. Intelligence officials referred to them as “the fragments” — fighters without doctrine, driven only by vengeance.
For Ali Umar, once Shekau’s loyal guard, the end came with both relief and emptiness. “We didn’t fear death,” he later boasted. “We feared failing him.” Shekau’s wives and concubines disappeared. Some were taken as wives by new commanders; others vanished into displacement camps. His children scattered, some adopted by the group’s members and sympathisers, others presumed dead.
The generosity of a warlord
According to members of the first generation of Boko Haram who knew him during the era of Mohammed Yusuf, beneath Shekau’s ruthless public image was a leader who never forgot his early companions. From time to time, he would inquire about those who had drifted away or fallen on hard times. When he learned that someone was struggling, he often sent financial support — sometimes through trusted couriers carrying envelopes of euros or U.S. dollars, and occasionally even small gold bars. These resources, believed to have originated from ransom payments and other illicit dealings, were part of the group’s growing underground economy.
Former members say that Shekau used this wealth not only to sustain loyalty among his followers but also to lure back those who had left. His generosity was both a gesture of kinship and a calculated strategy for consolidating influence. One of the most notable examples was Mamman Nur, a senior figure who had abandoned the group before the July 2009 uprising and relocated to Cameroon.
There, Nur lived modestly, eking out a living as a commercial motorcycle rider and struggling to feed his family. Word of his condition reached Shekau, who soon invited him to return. Along with the promise of reconciliation came the offer of power and resources. When Nur rejoined, Shekau appointed him to a senior leadership position, granting him access to funds and logistical networks that helped shape Boko Haram’s operations in its early years.
The echo of one man’s madness
Shekau was a product of a system that fused ignorance, state brutality, and the politicisation of religion. When Mohammed Yusuf’s movement was fractured in 2009, it was not ideology that survived; it was anger. The state’s failure to provide justice became Shekau’s first platform of relevance. Each time a civilian was summarily executed after military raids in homes and public places, each time a mosque was demolished or a detainee tortured, the anger received further oxygen, and the insurgency gained recruits.
Yet Shekau’s doctrine went beyond politics. His idea of divine purity justified murder as worship. Even his followers were never safe from this obnoxious logic. Those who left were labelled apostates; those who stayed became executioners. He ruled through strange doctrines and terror, but both were built on the same principle: that human life could be weighed against one man’s interpretation of faith.
For the Nigerian state, Abubakar Shekau’s death marked the end of a man, but not the end of what he set in motion. His body was torn apart, but his fury, his words, his defiance reverberated across the Sahel. ISWAP endures — leaner, more calculating, and far more disciplined — while new factions emerge across the Sahel, carrying shards of his chaos and shaping them into new weapons and machineries of war.
The poisonous doctrines Shekau preached remain disturbingly resonant across northern Nigeria and the Sahel. It is not his violence that draws sympathy, but the sense of grievance and moral rebellion that underpinned it. For the few who embraced his violent creed, perhaps one in a hundred, their numbers still run into thousands, enough to reshape the fate of entire regions. They kill Christians when they can, and they kill Muslims who refuse to bow to their fancied divine authority.
In parts of Borno, Yobe, and northern Cameroon, Shekau’s message once spread like harmattan fire. Whole communities, long betrayed by state authorities, wallowing in poverty, and repressed by official corruption and neglect, recognise in his sermons a voice of rage, resistance, and a dream of revenge.
Men like Shekau did not rise in a vacuum; they drank from the wells of radical clerics who preached hate and intolerance unchecked by the Nigerian state. Under this caustic ideology, Christians were hunted and Muslims who dissented were condemned; no official or aid worker was spared, all profiled as agents of “Taghut”. Now, many who still fight beneath Shekau’s banner were born into it — children who never knew peace, who learned to recite the Qur’an to the staccato of gunfire, who bowed at dawn and raided by dusk. His legacy is not the scripture he claimed, but the scars carried by children born into a storm they did not start and cannot yet escape.
This report draws on archived materials and interviews with over ten individuals — among them former associates, friends, bodyguards, and captives of Abubakar Shekau — whose testimonies provided critical insight into his personal life, network, and operations.
By 2013, Shekau had become both emir and ruler in his own theocratic sovereign state. Sambisa, now a metaphor for bloody resistance, had transformed into a fortified world of trenches, checkpoints, and fear. At its core lay a settlement known as Ukuba on the fringes of Farisu, an area within the Sambisa forest reserve where Sunday Shaibu, a Nigerian Army Staff Sergeant, engaged in one of his toughest battles against Boko Haram in 2016. “When we got close to Farisu in Sambisa, the terrorists put up a fierce resistance never seen before, with scores of soldiers and terrorists killed,” Shaibu told HumAngle.
For more than seven years, Abubakar Shekau’s compound in Ukuba sat only a loudspeaker’s reach from the army’s fortified garrison in Bitta (Gwoza LGA), between 7 and twelve kilometres apart. The soldiers could hear Ukuba’s call to prayer drifting over the scrub, and the fighters heard Bitta’s in return. Yet no one crossed. A wide, invisible wall of landmines lay between them.
Ibrahim Pulka, once a courier for Shekau, ferrying drugs, food supplies, and handwritten letters or voice notes recorded and saved in memory cards to be dispatched within Sambisa and on some occasions far away, told HumAngle that the warlord’s long stay in the Farisu precinct was no coincidence. “It’s the only area in the reserve where the trees form a living wall,” he said, describing a landscape so dense that daylight often arrives dim and broken. Beneath that canopy lies a treacherous wetland, its mud deep and deceptive, swallowing even the bravest soldiers’ boots like quicksand.
Heavy vehicles and motorbikes of the counter-terrorism forces falter there; only those on foot dare to tread. And even then, death lurks beneath the soil. The area is laced with mines, so many that, according to Ibrahim, “not a week passes without monkeys being blown apart by hidden explosives.” For Shekau, who lived in Farisu throughout his stay in Sambisa, these characteristics worked in his favour, as they helped ensure that outsiders had difficulty gaining access. He introduced laws to ensure the area remained dense: no cutting down of trees, even for use in his own household. Anyone caught cutting down trees in Farisu was immediately executed, no matter who they were.
Every morning began before dawn—the muezzin’s call blended with the clatter of crockery at daybreak. Generators for the supply of electricity were ingeniously installed at a distance from the homes they powered, using underground cables, to avoid detection by surveillance aircraft that occasionally circled overhead.
Young children fetched water and shared food, which was always in abundance in Ukuba, even during times when the group faced hunger and starvation. Reaching Ukuba without an invitation was almost impossible. Its checkpoints were manned by teenage boys bearing rusty rifles. Each checkpoint was a test of a visitor’s loyalty. Inside, Shekau’s compound stood behind walls of mud and timber. Visitors surrendered their weapons a kilometre away. Those who were allowed entry spoke of a house that was neither grand nor austere. In its centre lay a prayer mat worn smooth from years of use, spread on a woven rug. A small metal box held his most guarded possessions: a handheld radio, a few documents, and a set of Qur’anic commentaries. Every decision to conduct raids, bombings, and executions emanated from this room.
Shekau’s obstinacy
In the wilderness, he built an empire of terror and servitude. One associate recalled that it was impossible to count his enslaved women; he would hand them out as gifts to loyal fighters returning from raids or after capturing villages. He fathered 26 children in total — 19 from his wives, and five from women he enslaved.
A former female captive, kept in his household for over a year as a sex slave, later recounted a harrowing experience of repeated rape and labour. “He didn’t speak much, but before sex, he would try to be chatty and touchy,” she said with teary eyes. He would force himself upon her once or twice a week, depending on his availability or her monthly cycle, back in their quarters, where other Kuyangus (sex slaves) were kept, about six at the time. The sexual abuse was so normalised that they teased her in their rare moments of laughter and jokes that she was Shekau’s favourite, considering how frequently he abused her, in comparison to the others.
She recalled that he always kept a suicide vest within reach and took personal hygiene seriously, such as frequently brushing his teeth with a Miswak (chewing stick). “I remember this because when I was passed on to two other fighters before the military rescued me, my hygiene and that of my captors were a constant source of irritation aside from the fear of death,” she recounted.
Shekau’s guards enforced his will with absolute obedience. “Those he accused of sin were forced to dig their own graves,” one former bodyguard recounted to HumAngle years later. “We would shoot them and bury them ourselves.” Another bodyguard was Ali Umar, whose obligations to his principal sometimes stemmed from reverent awe as a spiritual leader and, at other times, from fear.
On one such occasion, the hands of the man condemned to die trembled so violently that the shovel kept slipping from his grip. “He knew what awaited him. After a while, one of us grew impatient, seized the shovel, and began to dig the pit ourselves.” The man just stood there, frozen — his eyes wide, his lips moving silently as if in prayer. “When the hole was deep enough, we told him to step into it. He obeyed. Then we raised our rifles and fired. Sometimes, in those moments, we felt something — pity, grief, or perhaps shame. A few of us even wiped our eyes. But no one dared to question the orders. No one refused. To hesitate was to invite death upon yourself.”
Between 2013 and 2016, Shekau had effectively institutionalised violence as the means of governance. His command structure, once collegiate, gradually descended into a cult of personal ego. Previously trusted lieutenants either faced death or fled. In their place rose enforcers — men like Pepper, Kaka Ari, and Aliyu Ka’id — whose only qualification was their unflinching promotion of Shekau’s thirst for blood. Shekau’s rule turned the movement inward. Fighters accused of dissent vanished. Civilians, often accused of apostasy, were summarily executed.
Even senior commanders lived in dread of accusations of misinterpreted dreams or becoming targets of a rumour. One defector recounted how Shekau shot a senior member of the group, Ba Gomna, at close range, as the latter descended from his motorbike. Shekau then rode on the bike, firing into the air, celebrating the execution. The victim’s crime was that “he bought a house at Amchide, [a border town between Nigeria and Cameroon], and that was enough to kill him.”
Prominent among his victims were Bana Banki, Baba Abdulmalik, Muhammad Tasiu, Mustapha Chadi, Habu RPG, etc. Shekau himself shot some. The executions were conducted under veils of unsubstantiated allegations; the widows would be told their husbands died in battle. “This was no longer Islam,” frowned Mamman Nur, one of Shekau’s long-term associates who then defected to ISWAP mainly for this reason, before being killed by his own comrades.
Appeals to ISIS and al-Qaeda
Years before Boko Haram splintered into different factions, Shekau desperately sought relevance, validation, and alliance from global jihadist organisations. In “Appeal to al-Qaeda,” a two-page Arabic tract sent in 2009, seen by HumAngle, he invoked Qur’anic verses urging unity among Muslims. He praised Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, pledging loyalty and seeking to learn al-Qaeda’s organisational methods. He signed as Abu-Muhammad Abu-Bakr al-Shakwi al-Muslimi — a calculated identity that merged scholarship with militancy. The message expressed a desire to “operate under one banner with a clear vision to spread the true religion”.
In 2010, his voice reached beyond Nigeria when Al-Andalus, the media arm of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), rebroadcast his Eid al-Fitr sermon. It was a symbolic endorsement: the first time AQIM broadcast a message from a group outside its direct orbit. Those close to Shekau in Kano at the time said he was elated about the news. But that alliance did not last. By 2012, al-Qaeda’s affiliates distanced themselves, citing Shekau’s indiscriminate killings and theological excesses. The stage was set for new fractures.
Ansaru, officially known as Jama’atu Ansaril Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan, emerged in 2012 as a Boko Haram splinter, vowing to “protect Muslim lives and property in Black Africa”. The group positioned itself as a moral and ideological counter to Boko Haram, accusing Abubakar Shekau of abusing power and killing fellow Muslims. The final split reportedly came after a ₦40 million bank robbery. Shekau allegedly kept the loot for himself, deepening divisions within the insurgent leadership.
In March 2012, Ansaru’s kidnapping of British engineer Chris McManus and Italian national Franco Lamolinara ended tragically during a failed rescue by Nigerian and British forces in Sokoto. The incident revealed Ansaru’s growing ties with AQIM and prompted a series of counterterrorism raids. Security forces later stormed Ansaru’s meeting points in Zaria, killing or capturing top members and dismantling its command structure. The group’s remnants retreated into the forests of southern Kaduna, marking the collapse of what once seemed a potent new faction in Nigeria’s extremist landscape.
Facing internal unease, defections, and the emergence of a faction, Shekau again sought acceptance from outside. In 2015, the group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, an offer ISIS accepted, leading to the emergence of the so-called Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Yet, from the beginning, Shekau’s interpretation of the religious enterprise fell short of conforming to the objectives of ISIS. While ISIS sought territory and taxation, Shekau offered purification or annihilation.
His sermons glorified suicide bombers, including young girls strapped with explosives who targeted markets and mosques. For him, death through whatever means was proof of devotion. For people who closely followed the internal feuds and contradictions among the jihadists, it did not come as a surprise that ISWAP commanders — led by Mamman Nur and Abu Musab al-Barnawi — accused him of corruption, enslavement, and murder of Muslims. In an internal communiqué, they described his doctrine as “the Shekau deviation”. To them, he was not just misguided; he was mad.
Continued below
Photo) On May 16/17, 2021, ISWAP columns began their advance into Sambisa from two strategic fronts.
Ahmad Salkida is a journalist who knew the founder of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf and other members of the the terrorist group.
The Making and Unmaking of Abubakar Shekau
By Ahmad Salkida November 26, 2025
Abubakar Shekau’s fanaticism thrived like wildfire in the Sambisa Forest Reserve. His dramatic reign ended abruptly, but the scars of his terror still linger. This is how he lived.
The night air over the Sambisa forest reserve in North East Nigeria throbbed with the growl of engines. Then came the voices — distant at first, before swelling, amplified through loudspeakers mounted on the backs of trucks. “We seek only Shekau,” the fighters declared. “Surrender, and you will live.”
It was late May 2021, and two columns of fighters of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) rolled into the dense forest in perfect coordination. Their target was not the Nigerian army, their usual adversary — it was Abubakar Shekau, the leader of rival terror group Boko Haram, who once ruled Sambisa as a self-anointed caliph while his followers wreaked havoc and terrorised northern Nigeria for more than a decade.
But this forest that once echoed gunfire and war chants now seemed overcast in ghastly silence; the fighters who had not abandoned Shekau — as many had taken ISWAP up on the chance to surrender — called it “the silence of waiting”.
In his wooded hideout, Shekau’s health deteriorated. Long afflicted with seizures, in the last days as ISWAP closed in, he reportedly suffered more frequent episodes, floating between rage and lethargy.
Within hours of ISWAP’s advance, the group’s stronghold was surrounded. Witnesses recall the confusion — frantic radio calls, bursts of gunfire, and the echo of men shouting in Kanuri and Arabic as the walls of Shekau’s empire closed in.
Then, the blast rolled through the trees.
According to an internal message released by ISWAP, Abubakar Shekau died in the hours between the 18th and 19th of May 2021. Rather than surrender, he reportedly triggered his suicide vest, killing himself and several others present. The man who had used death as a symbol of his sermons chose suicide as his final supplication.
It wasn’t the first time Shekau had died — his death had been rumoured and reported half a dozen times in the preceding years, by the military or competing insurgency groups — but it was the final, definitive time, with confirmation coming just a few days after the blast. His death ended his reign of terror, but his legacy endures across the Lake Chad region, and more broadly in the geopolitical alarm his insurgency helped ignite. It is the legacy of Shekau’s long war of mass abductions, executions, and persecution of Christians that has reverberated so far as to cause figures like Donald Trump to designate Nigeria as a land of Christian genocide requiring urgent U.S. military intervention.
Boko Haram has deliberately targeted Christians because of their faith. At the same time, the group also targets the vast majority of Muslims in the region as murtadd or murtaddūn—“apostates”—a label it applies to any Muslim who rejects its ideology, joins state institutions, or refuses to submit to its rule.
This dual campaign of violence is central to understanding the group’s impact. Many observers objected to Nigeria’s designation as a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom violations precisely because the data show that, for every two Christians killed or enslaved, as many as eight Muslims have suffered the same fate. This underscores that Boko Haram’s violence is not only sectarian but also profoundly political and ideological, targeting all communities that fall outside its extremist worldview.
This profile retraces Shekau’s path, from an obscure perfume seller in Maiduguri to the architect of one of Africa’s deadliest insurgencies with a $7 million bounty on his head. Shekau’s caustic ideology and cruelty reshaped a region and left behind a generation born into war.
To understand why Shekau died the way he did, we must first know how he lived.
He was born in a remote village in Yobe State, northeastern Nigeria, where his early life unfolded in a modest, devout Muslim household. His father served as a local district imam and ensured that religion, discipline, and community values formed the foundation of his son’s upbringing.
Shekau was a familiar face on the village’s dusty football fields. “He was an above-average player,” one of his childhood friends recalled. “You couldn’t ignore him in a game.” Back then, everyone called him by his nickname, Babson — a name that echoed across the playgrounds from Yobe to Maiduguri in the 90s.
Shekau was a fluid midfielder, sometimes stepping into defence when the match demanded grit. “He read the game well,” said his friend. “When he played, his presence was always felt.”
Off the pitch, however, his world was more modest and solitary. For years, his livelihood revolved around a rickety Spilley bicycle and a box of small perfume bottles tied to the back. He was known as Mai Turare, the perfume seller. In one Maiduguri neighbourhood, two residents recalled his sales ritual: he’d uncap a bottle, dab a drop on the back of your wrist, and wait silently as the scent settled on your skin. Only then would he ask if you wanted to buy.
According to his mother, Falmata Abubakar, who spoke with journalist Chika Oduah for Voice of America in 2018, Shekau’s childhood was fairly uneventful. As a young boy, he left home for Maiduguri to continue his Islamic education — a common path for children known as almajirai. In this traditional system, students live under Quranic teachers, locally known as Mallamai, memorising scripture from wooden slates while often fending for themselves by begging for food.
Falmata described her son’s early years as humble and devoted to learning, but she also identified this period as the turning point in his life.
His first Islamic teacher, Malam Mande, rewarded Shekau with a bride after he memorised the Qur’an. The couple were in their late adolescence. But the joy was short-lived as his young wife died in childbirth. The circumstances surrounding the tragedy drove a wedge between Shekau and his teacher. In the midst of this great wave of personal grief, sometime in 2004, fate brought him together with Mohammed Yusuf, the radical cleric who would later found Boko Haram.
“Since Shekau met with Mohammed Yusuf, I didn’t see him again,” Falmata, Shekau’s mother, said. Her words carried both love and sorrow. “Yes, he’s my son and every mother loves her son, but we have different characters. He brought a lot of problems to many people,” she told VOA. “He just took his own character and went away. This is not the character I gave him. It’s only God who knows.”
The birth of Boko Haram
Nigeria’s transition from military rule to democracy in 1999 was rocky. For decades, the country had been governed by a fraught, violent series of military dictators who grappled for power, overthrew each other in coups, and crushed opposition with force. Corruption was rife, as was neglect of communities on the peripheries.
In Maiduguri, out on Nigeria’s northeastern fringe, the teachings of a medieval Sunni Muslim scholar and jurist, Ibn Taymiyyah, began to take hold. Ibn Taymiyyah’s ideas profoundly influenced contemporary Islamic reform movements, including Salafism and Wahhabism, by holding that the corruption of rulers justified followers’ rebellion. And in Maiduguri, Ibn Taymiyya’s writings found an audience among young people shaped by years of military rule and corruption, disconnected from a government that had long discarded them.
Among them was Mohammed Yusuf, a fiery young preacher who set up a study centre and named it ‘Ibn Taymiyyah Masjid’ in Maiduguri and hatched a group of like-minded thinkers, spurned by the government and eager for action. Boko Haram was born.
Shekau, who had been studying at the mosque, was among them and shared his compatriots’ profound rage. On occasions when he gave sermons, his voice trembled with suppressed fury as he condemned state impunity and corruption.
Muhammad Yusuf and Abubakar Shekau’s words spoke to the wounds of hundreds of youths that the state refused to see. Their promise of purity and justice, however twisted, felt like a balm. Many young men were drawn to this cult that offered dignity through resistance.
In late July 2009, clashes between the sect and Nigerian security forces erupted across four northern states. The violence, sparked by a disputed incident in Maiduguri and an initial attack in Bauchi, left hundreds dead. Rights groups later documented extrajudicial killings during the crackdown. Security forces stormed the group’s base and captured Mohammed Yusuf, who was later executed extrajudicially while in police custody. His body was riddled with bullets, behind a wall that serves as a barrier between the police headquarters and the police staff quarters. Detained in a cell at the time, I heard a senior Mobile Police officer yell, “Don’t shoot the head!” — so his body could be identified amid the heaps of corpses that were then piling up in Maiduguri. The gunfire that followed ended Yusuf’s life outside the law.
Shekau, who was wounded during a night assault on the Police Headquarters on July 27, 2009 (a bullet tore through his thigh), went underground. From the dust-choked streets of Maiduguri, he was ferried to Kano and admitted to the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Dala. Months passed as he nursed his wounds later in a rented house in the Rijiyan Zaki area within the Kano metropolis. This was when he adopted a pseudonym — Alhaji Garba — hiding his true identity from neighbours and strangers.
Shekau’s personal life was as regimented as his theology. He remarried after his first wife’s death, and later took an additional wife, Hajara, who was the younger sister of one of Mohammed Yusuf’s wives. By the time Boko Haram’s violent uprising erupted in July 2009, Shekau was married to Yana and Hajara. After Yusuf’s death, Shekau claimed one of his widows, Hajja Gana, as his third. By 2011, when he was still living in Rijiyan Zaki in Kano, he added a fourth wife, Fatima, from Potiskum in Yobe State.
“Alhaji Garba” defied the script, as bombs were being detonated at the Police headquarters, UN house, media houses and several mosques and churches in Abuja and across northern Nigeria. He cruised highways, dropped into towns, and traded pleasantries at checkpoints from the owner’s corner of his SUV and sometimes in the ’90s model of a Golf sedan.
Then came the nationwide search. Cornered in Kano, he bolted through Maiduguri to Bama, the ghost town he controlled and vanished into the Sambisa wilderness. He took with him his four wives and dozens of children
When he re-emerged, it was not merely as a man healed, but as a prophet of vengeance. Yusuf’s death and those of hundreds of sect members that were summarily executed, with their houses demolished and businesses confiscated by the Nigerian government, did not end the threat. Instead, the episode set the stage for a far deadlier insurgency under Shekau’s leadership.
Suspected members of Boko Haram were detained in sweeps across the country. Fear of arrest and persecution led many young men to shave their beards, and many women to stop wearing long hijabs. The stigma attached to families with any real or perceived link to the sect forced many to relocate; some parents did not survive the strain.
From that point, an already incensed and offended sect read their plight as state persecution. Facing the path of radicalisation, the sect found justification in fueling retribution. Their assassinations of police officers, suspected informants, and traditional rulers spread across northern Nigeria. Bank robberies, car snatching, and other crimes also became rampant in parts of the North East.
In September 2009, Boko Haram orchestrated a prison break in Bauchi, freeing more than 700 inmates, many of them adherents of the sect. The sect arrived in Bauchi with leaflets bearing their chosen name, Jamaatu Ahlissunnah liddaawati wal-Jihad (JAS), which they scattered across the city like confetti. It was the first time the sect rejected the poster name Boko Haram and proclaimed its preferred name. A sign that the group was probably preparing for a prolonged offensive showed in its manifesto dated September 7, 2009, in which it honoured its fallen members, held the state responsible for the demolition of mosques, denounced those who snitched on it and vowed to wage jihad against Nigeria. It then drew a line on the sand, threatening that “those who collaborate with unbelievers … will perish with them.” This was the seed of Shekau’s doctrine of insurgency — a war without mercy, legitimised through his bigoted interpretation of the scripture.
It would later become evident that these criminal activities were sources of funding for turning the sect into a fiery army. By 2011, Shekau’s Boko Haram moved to suicide car bombs, IEDs and coordinated raids. In Abuja, a bomber drove into the Nigerian Police Headquarters on June 16, killing several people. On Aug. 26, a suicide car bomb struck the UN compound, killing 21 and injuring dozens. In Damaturu on Nov. 4, waves of car bombs and gun battles hit police stations, churches, and banks, leaving about 100 to 150 people dead. Christmas Day attacks later that year hit churches in Madalla (near Abuja) and Damaturu, killing over 41 people. In the years that followed, suicide bombings and shootings were recorded in major mosques in Kano, Adamawa, Kaduna, Abuja, and others.
Boko Haram roughly translates to “Western education is forbidden,” reflecting the group’s rejection of Western-style schooling and governance, which they see as bearing a corrupting influence on Islamic values. Nevertheless, the group does not use the name Boko Haram. Members call themselves Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād, “the People of the Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad.” This name emphasises their religious identity and mission as they see it — spreading their version of Islam through Da’wah (preaching or invitation) and Jihad (engaging in struggle) against what they consider un-Islamic authorities and communities.
The movement, and its later offshoots such as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), have devastated the Lake Chad Basin since 2009, directly causing tens of thousands of deaths and displacing millions across Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon — destroying livelihoods, fracturing communities, and turning once-thriving settlements into ghost towns. HumAngle has extensively documented this destruction.
Continued below
Photo 1) Abubakar Shekau
Photo 2) Ahmad Salkida
Photo 3) As Shekau directs bombardments across northern Nigeria and Abuja, he lived in Rijiyan Zaki, within the Kano metropolis from 2009 to 2012, before moving to Bama in Borno State early in 2013, and later relocated to the Sambisa Forest Reserve.
TonyeBarcanista: Hey bro, at the Federal Level, the Vice President is a statutory member and Vice Chairman of the National Defense Council and National Security Council. In fact, he is the Vice Chairman of every statuory body that the President chairs.
The vice president is the deputy head of state and usually represents the president when he is not available, but the vice president does not usually attend security council meetings.
In fact, some people that don't know have tried to stir controversy because of this. They claimed that President Buhari was sidelining Vice President Osinbajo because the vice president did not attend a security council meeting.
The fact is that the vice president (at the federal level) and the deputy governor (at the state level) do not often attend security council meetings, but they sometimes do.
FreeStuffsNG: You're right ✅️ I am not sure LASTMA and LSNC are included though. Thank you sir.
It depends on what's being discussed.
For example, if the Ember months are approaching and they want to plan how to manage traffic during the period, then LASTMA could be invited. LASTMA could also be invited if there's any other major issue that significantly impacts traffic in the state.
commoditiesnig: Just 1/2mins reading would've saved you this embarrassment.
Read the write-up above.. Army, Airforce, Navy, Police, DSS.
Go back to school!
Why would you respond to someone that can't read, write and comprehend? Do you think he'll be able to understand your response? Just look at his two posts on this thread.
guest1234: Is the deputy governor not part of the meeting?
Both at the federal level (vice president) and state level (deputy governor) the deputy does not usually attend the security council meeting, but he could attend if he is needed.
My old post about the Lagos State Security Council.
As I said, representatives of other services are invited when needed. You can see representatives from the Customs and Immigration services, the FRSC and the Civil Defence in the old photo below.
The commander, 9th Brigade, Ikeja represents the Nigerian Army at the council.
The commander, NNS Beecroft, Apapa represents the Nigerian Navy at the council.
The commander, 435 Base Services, Ikeja represents the Nigerian Air Force at the council.
The Lagos State commissioner of police is a member of the council.
The Lagos State director of the SSS is also a member of the council.
These are ex officio positions. Whoever is the commander of the 9th Brigade represents the army and so on and so forth.
These people (with the exception of the director of the SSS) are also the same people that lay wreaths at the Lagos State Remembrance Day parade.
Other people can be invited to the meeting, depending on what is being discussed. For example, the Lagos State sector commander of the FRSC and the general manager of LASTMA could be invited if the council is discussing security and traffic control ahead of the ember months. Remember that the Lagos State commissioner of health often attended the council's meetings when they were discussing the security situation during the COVID-19 lockdown.
This council is important because the state government needs the security agencies in order to be able to do its job and the security agencies also need the state government.
For example, the attack at Atlas Cove led to security problems in Lagos and the State Government and the Nigerian Navy had to work together to find a way to prevent a recurrence and to compensate the families of the naval personnel and civilians that died in the attack.
Furthermore, one of the reasons that we have constant fuel tanker accidents in Lagos and that fuel tankers have blocked many roads is because militants in Ikorodu have constantly broken into petroleum pipelines and prevented the transportation of petroleum products to the hinterland by pipeline. The State Government and the military had to work together during the attack on the militants in order to ensure that they were flushed out and that no innocent civillians were affected.
Politics › Re: Governor Dapo Abiodun Meets With Security Chiefs (Photos And Video) by naptu2(op): 11:11am On Nov 28, 2025
