News

'How Can I Sponsor Boko Haram When They Killed My Blood Brother'- Ali Modu Sheriff Denies Allegation

Published

10 years ago

November 29, 2014

The immediate past governor of Borno state, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who has been accused severally of being the brain behind terror group called Boko Haram has spoken up.
In a new interview with Nigerian Tribune, the ex governor who has dumped APC for PDP addressed the allegations. Read the exciting excerpts below:
You were accused of sponsoring Boko Haram. What was your immediate reaction to the accusation?
I believe that if there is one person that has suffered at the hands of Boko Haram, that person is me. I cannot be a sponsor and at the same time bear the highest number of casualty. By my upbringing, my association and my relationship with people, I have never met one person that belongs to Boko Haram. No member of my family has found or arrested as a member of Boko Haram.
I lost my blood brother – same father, same mother – to Boko Haram. I lost my cousins to Boko Haram and I lost many of my friends and associates to Boko Haram. Now, I ask: whoare those people killing us? I think those people who are making the allegations are the same people killing us. They are the same people using propaganda to give the dog a bad name so as to hang it.
I do not look like someone who would even associate with Boko Haram, let alone be a sponsor. Truth never hides its colour. I am happy today because facts have emerged. All those fabricating these lies have been arrested. Those that fabricated this so-called Stephen Davis saga are currently in the hands of security agencies. All of them have met their Waterloo. When the security agencies finish their investigations, they will let us know who asked them to fabricate stories.
There is no way I would be chief executive of a state and a Boko Haram sponsor and killing my own relations and friends. I don’t think even the devil would kill his own.The allegation was pure fabrication by some people in this state. Everything you heard about this Boko Haram was fabricated here in Maiduguri. The photographs of those claiming to be Boko Haram commanders with Stephen Davis were taken within Maiduguri.
We now know those behind those masks. We know their locations in the state and we know the people behind the fabrication. It is very unfortunate that they allowed themselves to be used. They were all arrested and in due course, they will be presented before Nigerians to tell them who sent them to do what they did.
When the security agencies finish their work, as I said, the whole world will know who is Boko Haram and who is not. For me, I have no association with Boko Haram. I have no relationship with Boko Haram and I will never have one. I have nothing in common with people that are associated with Boko Haram. I mean, what is Boko Haram? Simply western education is Haram. Everything I became today was through western education. If western education is Haram, I could not have become a senator, I could not have become governor; I could not have become what I have become today.
If I were one of them, their belief is that anything that has to do with western education is Haram – prohibited. I cannot be sitting here and talking to you if I believe that western education or everything western is Haram. Almighty Allah will expose them very soon. Allah will deal with them. I pray Allah to expose them and punish them. Allah will deal with all those people who want to destroy our name because of mere politics.
Your political opponents are accusing you of not being mindful of victims of insurgency who are now taking refuge in many camps made for internally displaced persons. How would you react to this?
Well, sometimes I wonder how some people think. The people of Borno State are not fools. They cannot continue to tell lies. I think many people have already replied them, but I will tell you this: the first time I came to Maiduguri after leaving office in 2011 was to see the people that were displaced as a result of the worsening security situation. I met with the victims and addressed them. I assisted them for a short-term cushioning effect. When people were killed by Boko Haram even at a time when nobody was ready to go to some of our local governments, I went round to commiserate with our people. I drove over 180 kilometres to visit and commiserate with victims at Kala-Balge.
When nobody wanted to go on such a voyage, I took the risk to condole with families of those that were killed by Boko Haram. I am not from Kala-Balge but I risked everything to go there. I went to Biu and other places. When the Federal Government brought some relief materials to the camps, some politicians went and locked up the schools where the victims are housed. How can you lock up people as prisoners, for God’s sake? They did that to prevent us from delivering the relief material to the victims.
But the people came to us. Some of them were crying. They said they were sleeping on bare floor and had insufficient food. They said succour came from the Federal Government but the state government was preventing them from accessing it. I don’t know what kind of politics we are playing with people that need assistance. What was their crime that they would not be allowed to receive relief materials from the Federal Government yet the state government continued to plead with Federal Government to send assistance? The state government has no idea what to tell Borno citizens. They lack the knowledge to comfort the people. The state government is already three and a half years old and there is very little to show for their earnings.
People have said so many interesting things about the state government. Now, let the government come out and tell the people what they did in three and a half years with the resources entrusted to them rather than looking for excuses and abusing people. I was told that the APC chairman in the state was abusing us. Well, we cannot join issues with them because they are too small to join issues with. They are children who do not know their right from their left. They can abuse us for all they want but nothing scratches our skin. To them, politics is about going out and insulting people. For them, politics is about going out to tell lies. But that is not politics and that is certainly not what we are teaching the younger ones.
We are teaching them to go and join politics in order to help people, to bring dividends of democracy to their people and not to go and be abusing people. We did not teach them to carry stones and throw it at people or to carry cutlasses and knives to go and kill people. But as strange as this is, we believe that the government lacks what to tell people and as such, they are encouraging madness in the name of politics.
Today, they called us Boko Haram. I do not know what they are going to call us tomorrow. But when this puzzle is solved, every Nigerian, Borno State citizens in particular, will come face to face with the truth.
Lack of unity among its leaders has been identified as a major problem of PDP in the state. With your coming into the party, how is that being addressed?
We will unite all of them. In fact, you can see that we have come together, everyone that matters in the PDP. Our target is to work towards the return of peace in the state and all well-meaning Borno citizens have realised the importance of uniting to salvage our state. The leaders that you see today are not too keen on positions or political offices, but how to end the crises of Boko Haram and bring peace to our state. That is our goal in the PDP. I told you that running for elective office was not as important as ensuring that peace returned and Borno regained its lost name as the ‘Home of Peace.’
We are interested now in getting the right people into positions of leadership. We are at the retirement stage now and we need to bring up people who will take it from where we stop. But we need people who will work for Borno State and take it to the next level of development; people with the mind to reach out to the poor. We have done all we could in our power. Now we want younger people with ideas, who are not interested in insulting people to take over the affairs of the state so that we will be behind them to advise and correct them where necessary. This is the position we are supposed to take as elders and leaders in Borno State.
What are the chances of PDP winning the election in the state in 2015?
The PDP’s chances are bright. I don’t have to tell you this, going by what you saw when we arrived in Maiduguri. You saw the crowd and, of course, you will agree with me that those people were not a rented crowd. The people you saw on the streets of Maiduguri that day were not forced to come out of their houses to welcome us. The people of Borno State know that we did not lie to them when we were in office, hence, the crowd you saw. I have been playing politics for more than 30 years, but I have never seen such a huge number of people come out to welcome a politician in the state.
I was elected three times as senator, two times as governor, but I have never seen such a big crowd despite insecurity. I told myself that shows that the people of Borno State have a mission and they expressed it. Their mission is to see change. We promise them that change would come. PDP has more than 90 per cent chance to win the 2015 governorship election in the state.