Borno SSG: Boko Haram Suspect Was After Gov Shettima

Leadership

17 January 2012

Borno SSG: Boko Haram Suspect Was After Gov Shettima

Secretary to Borno State Government (SSG), Ambassador Baba Ahmed Jidda yesterday shed light on the arrest of a suspected member of Boko Haram at the Borno State Governor’s Lodge, Abuja over the weekend, saying the man was obviously trying to  eliminate the state governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima.

In a statement made available to LEADERSHIP, the SSG insisted that the state government has no link whatsoever with the arrested suspect.

“On the evening of Thursday, January 5, 2012, one Ibrahim Umar Abba, an indigene of Borno state and a post-graduate student of the University of Birmingham in the UK, called the permanent secretary of the Borno State Liaison Office in Abuja, saying he was scheduled to catch a British Airways flight back to the UK the following day and would like to spend a night at the Governor’s Lodge in Abuja. The permsec obliged him.”

Checks by LEADERSHIP confirmed that when Ibrahim Umar turned up at the lodge, he came with two other persons, one of them an airforce officer, the other a civilian.  Asked whether Governor Shettima knows Ibrahim Umar, the SSG in a telephone interview said neither the governor nor any official of the Government of Borno State knows him or his other associates.

“It turned out that the security agencies were on the trail of one of the three men, later identified as Kabiru Sokoto, for links with the Madallah church bombing on Christmas day.  They arrived at the lodge and arrested the three “guests” as well as all the staff of the Governor’s Lodge.”