Reports have emerged indicating that there are stronger links between Former governor of Borno state, Ali Modu Sheriff, and the Boko Haram sect.
This recent revelation further fuels suggestions the ex-governor/business man is a major sponsor of the terrorist sect.
Intelligence insights obtained by Premium Times in Maiduguri, Damaturu, and Abuja show dated communications between field officers and the velvet ranks of Nigeria’s military chronicling Mr. Sheriff’s involvement in promoting the growth of the sect.
The communications painted a picture of what appears to be a powerful regional support structure involving the Chadian president, Nigerian officials and Niger Republic, and spearheaded by Mr. Sheriff whom the intelligence presents as a powerful figure within this circle.
Strong evidence indicates that the Nigerian government received official actionable intelligence about Mr. Sheriff’s links to Boko Haram as far back as 2011 but has, curiously, ignored all warnings and nudges to act to stop the Boko Haram call him in for interrogation.
Mr. Sheriff has long been suspected of masterminding the Boko Haram sect, but the documents sighted by this newspaper offers deeper understanding into how Mr. Sheriff allegedly finances the deadly sect and his probable motivations. When Sheriff visits Abeche Nourished by deep and impeccable sources from members of the Chadian Army, Nigerian intelligence experts had arrived at fairly certain conclusions that Mr. Sheriff was actively involved in the recruitment, training and deployment of Boko Haram members. “…members of Boko Haram sect are sometimes kept in Abeche region in Chad and trained before being dispersed.
This happens usually when Mr. Sheriff visits Abeche,” a 2011 memo from field officers in N’djamena,the capital of Chad, read.
When Mr. Sheriff visits Abeche for these activities, he lodges in Chadian Presidential Guest House in Abeche, and is provided security by the Chadian government, the intelligence communications claim.
Mr. Sheriff is a close friend of the Chadian president, Idris Deby.
In 2011, during the Chadian presidential elections, Mr. Sheriff supported the Chadian president with 35 vehicles, for security, and is believed to have bankrolled Mr. Deby’s re-election.
Nigerian defence and intelligence community members typically describe Mr. Sheriff as a gun runner in their many communications, and they often speak in conviction that his weapons find their way into Nigeria through Niger Republic into Yobe state.
Yobe is Boko Haram’s stronghold and has suffered heavy casualties in magnitudes only second to Borno. Money, Politics and Power Back in August 2011, intelligence officials were characterising Mr. Sheriff’s motivations for sponsoring Boko Haram as similar to a certain “3rd generation South South governor,” with the aim of covering up financial irregularities he might have committed as governor of Borno state, as well as propagate a stay-put in office strategy by suppressing the opposition.
The officials suggest that Mr. Sheriff did not create the sect but was actively using the “monster” and could be sponsoring the sect as a way of protecting himself from the sect members who were “calling for his head” at the time. “One way of reclaiming the lost loyalty of the sect therefore, was sponsorship of their cause,” intelligence officials were telling their principals.
Mr. Sheriff was not reachable for his comments.
A former commissioner under his administration as governor of Borno state who also speaks for him, Inuwa Bwala, told PREMIUM TIMES Mr. Sheriff was outside the country and could not respond to enquiries. Both the Nigerian defence headquarters and the Nigerian government also declined to comment on this intelligence.
Phone calls were not answered, and text messages were not replied to. Mr. Sheriff has been accused before of links to the terrorist group, Boko Haram. He denies any links.
An April 2, 2012 report by a Cameroonian daily, L’Oriel du Sahel, said the former governor, now a member of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was arrested in 2012 upon entering Cameroon from Chad on his way to meeting the governor of that country’s northern region.
The report said Cameroonian police authorities questioned Mr. Sheriff for hours and only released him later following pressure from senior government officials in that country.
An Ambassador Usman Galtimari Panel, set up by President Goodluck Jonathan to investigate the genesis of the insurgency in the North East, had also blamed Mr. Sheriff for the growth of Boko Haram in a report.