Echoes of a Gory Past

Muhammed Yusuf

One year after insurgents belonging to a religious sect, Boko Haram unleashed blood-chilling mayhem on Maiduguri, Borno state, sending hundreds of Nigerians to their early graves, four senior police officers are to stand trial for allegedly executing leader of the group, Muhammed Yusuf, extra- judicially
By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
No doubt, as young boys growing up, the quartet of John Abang, Mohammed Akeera Yonus, Mohammed Ahmadu and Mada Buba were in love with the Police hence when it was time to make a career choice, they readily pitched their tent with the force.
But after rising through the ranks to attain their current senior cadre in the Police, their long years of service is about to come to an inelegant end. And except a miracle happens, the four police officers may soon bid an inglorious farewell to the force.
The threat to their career in the police is the unfortunate fall-out of the Boko Haram insurgency which rocked Maiduguri, the Borno State capital last year. The officers stand accused of extra-judicially killing the arrowhead of the bloody insurgency, Mohammed Yusuf.
Already, the Police Service Commission (PSC) has approved the suspension of the four officers, as recommended by a police investigative panel that probed the Jusuf execution saga.
In the dying days of July last year, Maiduguri had laid prostrate to fundamentalist-induced orgy of violence only comparable to the Maitatsine mayhem in parts of the North in 1980.
Essentially, between July 26 and 29 last year, a blood-chilling mayhem was unleashed on Maiduguri by a band of well armed Islamic fundamentalists under the name “Boko Haram.” The English translation of Boko Haram is “Western education is evil.”
The blood-thirty fundamentalists were so prepared and entrenched in their murderous outing that it took military intervention in form of deployment of armoured tanks and three days of intense operation before the insurgents’ stronghold was leveled and the rebels subdued.
At the end of the mayhem, hundreds of people including the terror-in-chief of Boko Haram, Yusuf, and scores of policemen laid motionless- dead.
Though the Boko Haram ringleader may be long death and his foot soldiers dispersed, the echoes of the bloodily crusade is yet to peter out, at least for four senior police officers: Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) John Abang (Ap. No.30468), ACP Mohammed Akeera Yonus (Ap. No.30514), Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Mohammed Ahmadu (Ap. No.23757) and Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mada Buba (Ap. No.86112).
The four officers were at the time of the insurgency, members of the Borno State Police Command and thus, one way or the other, were at the centre of police efforts to quell the malady.
Essentially the four embattled officers are the prime suspects in the controversy surrounding the violent end of the Boko Haram leader, Yusuf after he had been captured by the military authorities and handed over to the Borno State Police Command. Yusuf was shot dead under very hazy circumstances shortly after Colonel Ben Ahanaotu who led the military operation that smoked him out and dispersed his followers handed him over to the police.
Though the official position of the State Police Command was that Yusuf was killed in a cross-fire between the police and some die-hard members of his sect, who had allegedly stormed the Command’s Headquarters to rescue him, footages on Al-Jezeera, a foreign television network were later to disprove this account. The footages had shown the Boko Haram leader being shot by the police. It also showed his bullet-riddled body, prompting outrage around the world, especially within the human rights community.
The journey to a looming ignomious end to the career of the quartet of ACPs Abang and Yonus, CSP Ahmadu and ASP Buba started with the post-mortem panel on the alleged extra-judicial murder of Yusuf chaired by the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Chief Marshal Paul Dike. The panel was established by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua following worldwide outcry over the issue.
The CDS panel had, among other things recommended that the Inspector-General of Police, Ogbonna Onovo should constitute a separate panel of investigation to identify the person or persons that shot the Boko Haram leader. The outcome of the IGP’s investigative panel is today a source of nightmare to Abang and co.
The panel's reports with reference numbers: CR:3000/IGP SEC/SIU/FHQ/ABJ VOL.7/812 dated July 9, 2010 and CR: 3000/IGP SEC/SIU/FHQ/ABJ/VOL.7/471 dated February 23, 2010 indicted the four officers for culpable homicide and recommended that they be suspended from duty prior to their arraignment and trial.
In a July 13, 2010 letter to the Chairman of the PSC, a body statutorily invested with the powers to promote, demote or discipline senior police officers minus the IGP, Deputy Force Secretary, Commissioner of Police Samson Wudah had explained that the officers were been investigated for:
* Discreditable conduct
* Telling falsehood
* Unnecessary exercise of authority
* Conduct prejudicial to discipline
Wudah’s letter to the PSC boss, Parry Osayande, a retired Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), was in effect a request for the Commission “to consider placing the officers on suspension in order to pave way for their arraingment and prosecution as demanded by the Ministry of Justice.” Their suspension by the PSC, according to Wudah, “is essentially because serving members of the force are not usually arraigned in court for criminal offences while still in service.”
The police probe panel which indicted Abang and the three others was headed by Ali Amodu, Commissioner of Police in charge of Special Investigation Unit (SIU), Force Headquarters, Abuja. Apart from the four indicted officers, the panel had in the course of its assignment summoned several senior officers to give account of what they know about Yusuf’s execution.
Among those summoned were the then Borno State Commissioner for Police, Christopher Dega, and Deputy Inspector-General of Police (Operations), John Hamza Ahmadu. On the instructions of the IGP, Ahmadu was in Maiduguri during the mayhem to take over command of operations in the state.
According to the report of the police panel, autopsy and hospital reports on the slained Boko Haram kingpin attributed cause of death to “severe hemorrhage caused by multiple gun shots.” The reports further informed that “the hospital recorded the time of death of the deceased (i.e Yusuf) as 6.1pm of July 30, 2009, on the deceased hospital card no 07437109. He was brought to the hospital dead (BID).”
According to the reports of the police investigation “Col. B. I. Ahanaotu handed over the deceased suspect (Yusuf) to AC (OPS) Maiduguri, Mr. J. B. Abang at about 1750 hrs of July 30, 2009.” Essentially it was at this point that the violent fate that was to befall Yusuf became a matter of intense controversy.
DIG Ahmadu in his testimony to the panel said that it was Abang that brought the sect leader from the Army Brigade Headquarters in Maiduguri, where- upon he immediately instructed Dega to hand him (Yusuf) to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) for further interrogation.
According to Ahmadu, no sooner had he left for his office within the state Police Headquarters than he heard sporadic shooting downstairs. Upon enquiry, DIG Ahmadu was told by Abang that some followers of the sect leader attempted to forcibly rescue him and in the melee, Yusuf was shot dead along with some others. The DIG explicitly denied giving orders for Yusuf's execution.
Dega’s account of what happened is not radically different from that of DIG Ahmadu. According to the former Borno State Commissioner of Police, Yusuf was brought to the State Police Head-quarters alive and was about to be handed over to the SCID when some suspected Boko Haram fanatics stormed the headquarters in a bid to rescue him from custody.
Dega averred that the sect leader died during the ensuing crossfire. He posited that he could not, however, identify the officer that fired the fatal shot.
Notedly, all the four embattled officers – just as DIG Ahmadu and CP Dega distanced themselves from Yusuf’s controversial end. Abang, who is currently serving in Anambra State Police Command, in his defence before the panel admitted that Yusuf was handed over to him by the military authorities. He, however, denied that the handing over process was documented, pointing out that it was only when the panel headed by the CDS came to Maiduguri that Colonel Ahanaotu, on the instruction of the Brigade Commander, gave him a document to sign as handover note. Abang said he subsequently gave the note to Dega.
Abang further told the panel that having brought Yusuf to the state Police Headquarters, he left him in the custody of Yonus and Mohammed Ahmadu and went to the CP’s office upstairs. He claimed that on his way from Dega’s office, there was pandemonium in the whole Headquarters and the adjoining Barracks, with shouts of Allahu Akbar and gunshots filling the air.
Abang stated that at this juncture, he lost contact with ACP Yonus and Ahmadu as he had to run for cover and safety. He thus denied leading Yusuf to 6 PMF (Police Mobile Force) workshop to be killed, contending that he neither witnessed Yusuf’s execution nor did he (Abang) carry any arms on the fateful day.
Yonus in his statement of defence before the police panel disclosed that when Yusuf was captured, he was first taken to the Giwa Military Barracks. It was there, according to him, that he met ACP Abang and CSP Ahmadu. Yonus admitted that he and O/C Mopol 6, Maiduguri (CSP Ahmadu) provided escort that brought Yusuf to the State Police Headquarters from the military Barracks.
The embattled senior police officer claimed that his contact with the Boko Haram kingpin while alive ended at that point as he left immediately to take his drugs which he had not taken for six days, being a hypertensive patient. Yonus said that upon his return to the Police Headquarters, he saw several expended ammunition littered all over the place and upon inquiry was told that some die-hard followers of the sect leader had stormed the Headquarters in a bid to rescue their captured leader.
Yonus washed his hands off Yusuf’s execution, vehemently denying escorting the deceased to the Mopol 6 workshop and shooting him to death. He, infact, denied knowledge of the location of the Mopol workshop.
Perhaps, CSP Ahmadu’s testimony about Yusuf’s sordid end went a long way in providing the police investigative panel with some of the rock-solid evidence they used in indicting the four officers, CSP Ahmadu himself inclusive.
In his account of what transpired, CSP Ahmadu pointedly told the panel that his co-accused, Abang indeed gave the order for Yusuf’s execution at the Mopol workshop.
Ahmadu’s testimony: “On arrival at the state Headquarters, the ACPs (i.e Abang and Yonus) went to the CP’s office leaving him (CSP Ahmadu) on the ground. After some minutes, the two ACPs came down with CP Dega. The CP came close to the car and saw the suspect (Yusuf); the DIG also came and saw the suspect...CP Dega and the two ACPs went up, minutes later, the two ACPs came down and entered his car and directed them to drive to the workshop.”
Ahmadu futher disclosed that “on reaching the Workshop, ACP Abang opened the door and directed the men present to “waste” the suspect. The two ACPs left the scene and went back to the state Headquarters, Maiduguri. Minutes later, the corpse was removed to the Headquarters by CID personnel.”
Buba, like his co-accused, denied taking any part in Yusuf’s execution. He stated that he was at his duty post at the state police Headquarters on the day in question. And on July 26, 2009 when the insurgents made efforts to invade the headquarters, he took steps to forestall the attack and promptly informed Abang of the situation. Buba said he even detailed a driver to take injured policemen to hospital for treatment, contending that he appeared on the Al-Jezeera footages execution because he was at the gate of the state Headquarters guarding the premises just like other policemen.
Denials and protestations of innocence by the four embattled police officers were not enough, however, to stop the panel from indicting them. In the summary of its findings, the panel, among other things, held that:
*The AC (OPs) Borno Command, ACP Abang took over in writing the Boko Haram sect leader, Mallam Mohammed Yusuf from the 21 Armoured Brigade at about 1750hrs of 30/07/2009 and drove him in a police patrol car to the state Headquarters in company of the Area Commander, ACP Akeera Mohammed Yonus and Commander 6 PMF Maiduguri, CSP Mohammed Ahmadu. The alleged Boko Haram sect leader was killed at about 18.1 hrs sameday as a result of severe hemorrhage occasioned by gunshots.
*ACP J.B Abang who was the most senior police officer on ground and who also took over the deceased from the Army directed some men among those that followed them to shoot at the deceased. The men were joined by Policemen on Mobile Training pouring bullets into the body of the deceased.
*The deceased was killed at the Mopol 6 Workshop. This was confirmed by both CSP Ahmadu, the Commander 6 PMF and DSP Abdulazeez Aliyu who visited the scene shortly after and saw the corpse there.
*There was no reprisal attack on 30/07/2009 by the followers of Muhammed Yusuf, the deceased. The sect last attacked the state Headquarters on 26/07/2009 and not on the 30/07/2009 as alleged. There was no expended ammunition to recover in the state Headquarters, no visible marks of gunshots on the walls or any victim of the attack, either police or civilian on 30/07/2009. The statements of two ACPs, John Abang and Akeera Mohammed were misleading with intent to cover up the unprofessional manners they handled the incident.
*The military handed over the insurgent leader at exactly 1750 hrs on 30/07/2009, and the medical report confirmed him dead at 6.10pm of the same date. It means that Mohammed Yusuf was shot barely 20 minutes after the hand-over exercise.
*From the statements collated, there is no direct evidence of indictment of the two most senior officers (DIG Hamza John Ahmadu and CP Dega), but the fact remained that as Senior officers on the ground, they may not be able to exculpate themselves from responsibility in the management of the situation.
In its conclusion and recommendation, the police probe panel emphatically stated that “the police as represented by ACP J.B Abang unprofessionally handled the situation and led the deceased to 6 PMF base where the trainees were still grieving over the killing of their colleagues by members of the sect. As a result, the deceased was attacked by many policemen present at the scene and killed...Consequently, ACP J.B Abang should be made to carry his cross as the prime suspect in this case. But by legal implication, ACP Akeera and CSP Mohammed Ahmadu would be parties to the heinous crime as the three of them escorted the sect leader to the 6 PMF Workshop where he was slaughtered in handcuff.”
The PSC letter to Onovo dated July 15, 2010 and signed by Mallam Jibrin Sa’eed on behalf of the PSC chairman was entitled: “Re: Recommendation for Suspension from Duty”.
It reads in part: “With reference to your letter REF No: CH, 6700/FS/FHQ/ABJ/SUB/198 on the above subject matter dated 13th July 2010... I wish to convey approval for the suspension of the said officers as recommended.”