The Senate was stunned on Thursday as Senator Buka Ibrahim revealed that the Boko Haram sect employ threat tactics in getting influential persons to fund their activities.
The Senator also said the Joint Task Force has killed more people in North East region than the sect or even criminals.
Senator Buka was recently nominated by Boko Haram along side Gen Mohammadu Buhari, to lead their negotiation with the Federal Government over some of their greviances.
Gen Buhari has dissociated himself from the sect, citing a spear campaign by the government and further announced his refusal to speak for them.
But while contributing to a motion on banditry attacks on Kabaru village in Mau Local Government area of Zamfara sponsored by Senator Kabiru Marafa and co-sponsored by all the Senators, Sen Buka blamed security agencies for the escalation of violence in the zone.
The sponsor of the motion, Senator Kabiru Marafa had earlier described what is happening in Zamfara as barbaric and called on the Federal government to work on Anka-Dangulbi-Dansadau-Birnin Gwari and Dayi-Tsafe-Dangulbi federal roads as a means of opening up the area and linking it with neighbouring communities.
Buka said “Today people are being forced to partially fund Boko haram because of the activities of this people.
“They kill one, two or three people around, they frighten everybody and now everybody is succumbing to their demands. So today people are being forced to partially fund Boko Haram because of the activities of these criminals.”
He accused security agencies of mass killings thus “security agencies are the number one killers in term of number. I am surprised the other day when the Chief of Army Staff said Boko Haram killed three thousand people; the security agencies have killed a lot more than three thousands when this thing started. On the first day that this crisis erupted in Maiduguri, over five thousand people were killed.”
Buka who stated that the sect had being in existence for a long time without going violent said ” It is particularly the police who pushed the Boko Haram people to the wall by killing their leaders, killing thousands of other innocent people.
That is
what forced them to come out against the Nigeria state. It is the attitude of the security agencies; the way they operate that really makes it worse, not any better.
Of course naturally, common criminals will take advantage of the situation to extort money from people and then the armed robbers are the third killers, and this is happening in Zamfara”, he said.
Worried by the disclosure of Sen Buka, the Senate President, Senator David Mark, directed the Police Affairs committee to look into allegations and promised that senate will do everything possible to ensure that the high level of insecurity in the country is reduced.
He nonetheless marked out the difficulties security agencies find themselves while operating in such terrain. He pleaded with residents of the area to always volunteer information on the activities of the sect.
“It is not for me to defend or speak for the Armed Forces but the Armed Forces find themselves in a very difficult situation when they have to do internal operations or street to street fight. What I would suggest is that areas where we have these types of problem people must give as much information out as possible and as quickly as possible because once you kill a member of the Armed Forces the natural reaction is for them to do what perhaps is happening now. It is very difficult to see a Commanding Officer seeing two or three of his people killed and then he begins to search around looking for the fellow who committed the atrocity. It is explainable.
For the police, I think as much information as you can give to them but there are serious allegations that have been raised here and I hope that the Committee on Police Affairs and Intelligence and National Security, Defence and the Army that will take up some of these.
“But I know that Senators have complained to me here about the action of members of the security agents and I have either the Chief of Defence Staff or the Chief of Army Staff to listen to their own side of the story too. The fact of the matter is that it is neither here nor there. When there is insecurity so many things can go wrong and that is why we must make every effort to bring the situation to normalcy”.
The Senate afterwards mandated the Inspector General of Police, to as a matter of urgency step up surveillance and effective police the area.
The senate also adopted the call on the federal ministry of works to prioritise work on Anka-Dangulbi-Dansadau-Birnin Gwari and Dayi-Tsafe-Dangulbi federal roads as a means of opening up the area and linking it with neighbouring communities.
It also called on National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to speed up intervention by providing relief to persons; largely women and children within the affected areas and communities.