A university lecturer, Dr Mohammed Nazeef Yunus, was on Wednesday paraded along four others by the Department of State Security Service (DSS), over their alleged involvement in Boko Haram-related activities including recruitment, training, arms running and acts of terrorism, among others.
Other suspects paraded by the Service are Umar Musa who was the Head of Operations/Instructor, Mustapha Yusuf a.k.a Habib said to
be the armourer/chief courier; Ismaila Abdulazeez, a foot soldier and Ibrahim Isah, otherwise known as One in Town, also said to be a foot soldier.
According to the spokesperson for
the service, Ms Marilyn Ogar, Dr Nazeef was until his arrest, an Assistant Lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Kogi State University, Ayingba and also was the spiritual leader and co-ordinator for the Boko Haram Sect in Kogi State.
Ms Ogar disclosed that all the suspects were picked up following a tip off that they had concluded plans to attack Kogi State after they had received terrorist and weapon handling training from the sect both in Kano and Maiduguri camps respectively.
According to her, “upon arrest, Dr Nazeef claimed that he held several preaching sessions every last Saturday and Sunday of the month at Ethosho Secondary School, Ojolo, Dekina LGA, where he has about 80 adherents and another session every Friday at the Kogi State University Mosque, Ayingba where he has about 120 adherents.”
Dr Nazeef, said to be a staunch member of the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), until his arrest, according to SSS since the beginning of ASUU’s strike, normally came from Jos where his family is settled to Kogi State to his followers and lectured on “the virtues of Jihad and the sanctity of the Sharia system as an alternative form of governance and its entrenchment in Kogi and beyond.”
However, Dr Nazeef denied the allegations saying that he was being framed up by the unnamed members of the sect whose activities had preached against at his series of teaching.
But all the four other suspects paraded with him insisted that he lied and that he was their spiritual leader and co-ordinator who had on several occasions introduced them to training in the sect’s cells located in Kano and Maiduguri.
The duo of Mustapha Yusuf and Ismaila Abdulazeez were picked at a popular mosque in Zuba, a suburb of Abuja on their way to Maiduguri for training having been persuaded by the lecturer that they should forget western education and that there were more rewards in Jihad than western education.
Both Mustapha and Ismaila claimed that they came across the lecturer in the course of their seeking for assistance for admission into the Kogi State University and he promised to assist them while another suspect, Umar Musa, who was the head of operations of the group claimed that he knew the lecturer as far back as 1996 when he was the chairman of a Quranic recitation competition in the state after which he introduced him to the sect recently.
Umar Musa confessed that he was enlisted into the sect by accident when he lost his teaching job with the Kogi State Teaching Service Commission during the last screening exercise and that he was being paid N50,000 monthly salary by the sect
The service urged parents who normally send their children and wards to Quranic schools to be wary of the Islamic Centres they send them to as investigations had revealed that some of the Islamic scholars used such centres as camouflage to deceive the public.
@Ttribue
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