[ALLAFRICA] Federal Government, yesterday, told a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja that investigations revealed that the Islamist sect, Boko Haram... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
, received sponsor-ship from another terrorist organization based in Algeria.
The Federal Government, which made the disclosure on a day the high court commenced trial of one of alleged kingpins of the sect, Kabiru Umar, a.k.a Kabiru Sokoto, who allegedly criminal masterminded the Christmas day kaboom that killed about 44 persons and maimed 75 others at St. Theresa's Catholic Church at Madalla, Niger State, in 2011, gave the name of the Algerian terrorist group as Muslimiyama.
Witness' account
A masked witness, who was identified as Mr. XYZ in his testimony, further told the court that the sect not only received funds from the foreign terror network, but also robbed Christians whenever the need for money arose.
He added that the accused person, in a statement he made on January 14, 2012, confessed that it was in the process of sharing a particular fund that was received from Muslimiyama, that the Boko Haram sect became factionalised.
Narrating how Kabiru Sokoto was caught, the witness, who told the court that he was a terrorism expert, said the accused person had confessed that he was inducted into the sect by Hameel Abdulrazak in 2007, noting that prior to that time, the accused worked as a laboratory assistant at a Specialist Hospital in Sokoto State.
He told the court that before the accused person was apprehended at Borno State Government Lodge on January 13, 2012, after the police searched for him in so many northern states following his alleged complicity in sundry acts of terrorism, he had been an ardent follower of the late leader of the sect, Mohammed Yusufu, who was killed in 2009.
The witness said: "I had trailed the accused to Abaji where he has a house, I stayed there three days but he was nowhere to be found.
"However,
a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package...
I later got information that he was sighted at Borno State Governor's Lodge, so I immediately went there with my team. We searched the lodge and got to the boys quarters where he ran and hid at room two.
Given away by phone
"When we knocked for over 30 minutes and he didn't open, I decided to break the door with my leg, but the accused pushed from the inside until I called my team and we overpowered him.
"Because we didn't know him in person then, I asked him if he was Kabiru Sokoto and he denied. Then I searched him and found an LG phone on him which I used and dialed my own number only for Kabiru Sokoto's number, which we have been using to trail him to appear.
"Then I asked him again, and he said he was not Kabiru Sokoto but Kabiru Umar.
"My Lord, he spoke in fluent English and told me he lives at Abaji but hails from Sokoto State."
The witness told the court that when he took the accused to the station, he informed the dismissed Commissioner of Police for the FCT, Mr. Zakari Biu, who he said arrived from Kano.