Just recently, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the nation’s Information and Culture Minister, made what is obviously a fallacious and misleading statement, when he said “Nigeria would have been an Islamic state without President Mohammadu Buhari.”
I am certain that what gave Alhaji Lai Mohammed the impetus to make the statement is because Nigerians have not dispelled this fraudulent and false claim that it was President Muhammadu Buhari’s government that expelled the Boko Haram group from the fourteen Local Government Areas of Borno State.
Thus, Alhaji Mohammed has, again, decided to garb himself with the propagandist toga, which he used to wear as the Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC), forgetting that he is today, the Information Minister of the country, a position which he should use to build bridges between the Federal Government and the people of Nigeria, and across all divides in the country.
Setting the records straight:
It is pertinent to reiterate that Boko Harm was expelled from the fourteen Local Government Areas of Borno State by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government through the engagement of combined forces who were assisted by hired mercenaries.
Prior to the period the sect was expelled, they were occupying fourteen Local Government Areas in the State. As a matter of fact, it was as a result of this that the elections could not be conducted at the initial scheduled date, and had to be postponed. It was this effrontery of making the state not to hold its functions that made the then government to take the bull by the horn and flushed out the Boko Haram group out of Nigeria.
It is, therefore, not true that it was President Mohammadu Buhari that expelled Boko Haram out of 14 Local Government Areas of Borno State.
It must be remembered that some Nigerians believed that the Boko Harm sect will be used to harass and torment President Goodluck Jonathan, getting him out of office.
Even when it was suggested then that there should be a meeting to see the possibility of having negotiations between the Nigerian state and Boko Haram, the sect chose Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, rtd, as he then was, as their Chief Negotiator, even though a few days after the choice, he (Gen. Buhari), rejected the sect’s choice of him.
There were no accusations the APC did not level against President Jonathan then, including criticising him for killing innocent Northerners through the sponsor of Boko Haram. Meanwhile all these were fabricated lies from the pit of hell, against an innocent man whose only offence is that he as the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Force of a country, where some people think they alone have the exclusive right to be in that position.
I remember the altercations I had with three Governors of the North East, namely Admiral Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State, Kashim Shetima of Borno State and Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe State, on their accusations of President Goodluck Jonathan as the promoter of Boko Haram to kill northerners, especially, those of the Hausa/Fulani and Kanuri extraction. I rose up to the occasion defending President Jonathan, because he was innocent. It was just a true case of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
Also, amongst these Dr. Jonathan’s traducers, was Alhaji Lai Mohammed. I reproduce here, an excerpt of what he said after the unfortunate, sad and callous incident of the abduction of the innocent Chibok School the girls:
“It is clear that President Goodluck Jonathan has suddenly shown more interest in their release after his consensus nomination as PDP candidate for next year’s elections. Our appeal, therefore, is for the President to allow the immediate release of the Chibok School Girls, rather than wait for when it will give maximum boost to his political fortunes.” Page 33 of My Transition hour – Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
At another occasion, Alhaji Lai Mohammed made the understated careless statement against the government of President Goodluck Jonathan:
“The same government that is apparently behind the activities of Boko Haram had bluntly ignored wise counsel and said it will never negotiate their release.”
Unfortunately, Alhaji Lai Mohammed was not alone in this innate drive of “pull him down syndrome.” It was also alleged that some northern political leaders were also involved in this unfortunate mirage of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and his government being responsible for the abduction of the Chibok School girls.
On the contrary, one can even adduce that it is Alhaji Lai Mohammed and his co-travellers on this voyage of destroying an innocent President Jonathan, that should be the prime suspects. For instance, the attitude of both the then Borno State Governor, Kashim Shetima of not heeding to the advice of security experts and the Federal Ministry of Education which strongly objected, to relocate the Chibok school girls to another school to write their West African Senior School Certificate (WASSCE) examinations based on security reasons, was bluntly rejected by the Governor, who rather stated that he would provide adequate security for the students, but which of course he deliberately he did not do.
Another worrisome aspect about the abduction is how did the abductors get the army uniforms they wore, with which they deceived about 200 school girls that they had come to rescue them. It was reported that the girls thought that the abductors were genuine soldiers because of the uniform they wore. They took away the girls in vehicles, unchallenged.
The whole gang up against former President Goodluck Jonathan started when the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua took ill and eventually died on 9th May, 2010. It was at this stage that some ‘prominent’ persons from the North have vowed to themselves that they will not want Dr. Jonathan to return to power in 2011, and allegedly started orchestrating all manners of evil, including the fuelling the activities of the monster called Boko Haram.
The upsurge of the Boko Harm activities in the North-East, and its incursion into other parts of the country, with bombings even in the nation’s capital Abuja, were obviously the saddest, most difficult and trying times of President Jonathan when he was in office. I recall a most ridiculous incident that happened on 16th June, 2011, when there was an attempt to bomb the Louis Edet House, the premises of the headquarters of the Nigeria police Force. We were told that the Boko Haram bomber was alleged to have been at the residence of the then Inspector General of Police (IGP), and followed him (the IGP) in his convoy to the Force Headquarters.
On getting to the headquarters, the bomber detonated the bomb. But thank goodness, the plan failed as no single person was killed, but several vehicles, unfortunately, were destroyed. During this period, the opposition, of which Alhaji Lai Mohammed was one of its arrow heads, as the spokesman, carried out all sorts of propaganda, name calling, against a sitting President.
They ensured that their false and malicious statements made headlines in the news; they had a field day with social media. However, today, anyone who tries to do 1/100 of what they did or said then, will be guilty of “hate speech.”
President Goodluck Jonathan knew that people were out to get at him, in any way, by all means. He even openly stated that Boko Haram had infiltrated into his government.
In contrast, however, those who never wanted him in office and those who never liked him, were basking in joy because their handiwork was succeeding. And actually, nurtured the group to be more daring in any way possible including people who made statements that fanned the embers of their activities, like Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
But like the saying goes what goes around, comes around, they never knew they were raising what is like the proverbial Frankenstein monster. What they created became uncontrollable and returns to haunt them.
Today, part of Niger State in the North-Central geo-political zone, is occupied by Boko Haram. The Governor of the State, Dr. Abubakar Sani Bello, has cried out several times about this. The insurgents have hoisted their flags in parts of the State, collecting levies and taxes from farmers before the later will not only be allowed to go about their business, but to also enable them live in peace. Only recently, on 19th December 40 innocent persons were gruesomely murdered in Kaduna State by terrorists, in a State that has very major state security installations.
These are not imaginary persons; they are sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, relatives of persons. Infact, the names of 29 of them were published, the rest were yet to be identified. Just a few days ago, there were rocket explosions at different locations when the President visited Maiduguri. Yet, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Information Minister, is not seeing this; what he keeps seeing in his imagination is his warped images of 2015.
It is blatant false hood for Alhaji Lai Mohammed to claim that but for President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria would have been Islamised, that it was President Buhari government that sent Boko Haram out of the fourteen Local Government Areas in Borno State.
Before concluding, let me reproduce here an excerpt of what the former President Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan said in his book, My Transition Hour, just in case Alhaji Lai Mohammed has not read it:
“Anyhow, the six weeks served us well, we received the military equipment we were expecting within that period and our Armed Forces commendably, dealt a deserving blow on the terrorists and repossessed all territorial areas of Nigeria previously occupied by terrorists.
Boko Haram was deflated up to the point of handing over to my successor on 29th May, 2015.
We concluded the elections peacefully, even if there were issues raised about the fairness, at least the nation was relieved that the election held peacefully and that there was no post-election violence.”
This book, My Transition Hours was launched about three years ago, in November, 2018, neither Alhaji Lai Mohammed not any member of President Mohammadu Buhari’s government has refuted or challenged the above statement.
Of course, no patriotic Nigerian will believe Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s statement that it is President Mohammadu Buhari that prevented the takeover of Nigeria by Islam, rather, most Nigerians have the strong feeling that it is his government that has given or created the environment for the sect to return and be more daring. With all the menacing activities of this group, no armed herdsmen have been arrested. Is it by coincidence?
I want to reiterate that the spokesmen of President Mohammadu Buhari, are his albatross. Their unwarranted attacks, insults, arrogance on opponents, behaving like Paul Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist of the Nazi Party of Germany, and one of the closest allies and spokesmen of Adolf Hitler during World War 2.
As Information Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed should be building bridges, instead of widening and expanding the gulf.
Chief (Dr.) Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, OFR, CON.
Leader Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF)
and former Federal Minister of Information
