Boko Haram's Attack on Bama Barracks: Jonathan, Service Chiefs, IGP in Crucial Meeting

President Goodluck Jonathan 

         
President Goodluck Jonathan Friday held an emergency meeting with service chiefs in Abuja in response to the failed attempt by the Boko Haram sect to overrun Nigeria army’s 202 Tank Battalion in Bama, Borno State in the early hours of Friday.

It was gathered that the sect members attacked the 202 Tank Battalion with improvised explosive devices and petrol-bombs but were repelled by the military who in the process killed several members of the outlawed group.

Also Friday, the mastermind of the 2011 Christmas Day bombing of St. Theresa's Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State, Kabiru Umar a.k.a Kabiru Sokoto, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja after a trial that lasted about six months.

Miffed by the attack yesterday, Jonathan who was billed to preside over the decoration ceremony of 48 newly promoted Major Generals in the Army, Navy and Air Force, had to suspend preparations for the event and went into the meeting with the service chiefs.
Also in attendance at the meeting held in the Command Officers' Mess in Asokoro was the Inspector General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar.

At the meeting, Jonathan bemoaned the perilous times the country was facing, saying the situation required the effort of all Nigerians to ensure lives and property are protected.

After the meeting with the service chiefs, Jonathan told the newly promoted officers: "It is a very challenging moment. I remember when I came in, I had a meeting with the Service Chiefs and Inspector General of Police because of what happened in Bama yesterday. It is a very challenging period in this country.

"For those of you who have been so decorated as full two-star Generals, we expect that you will bring your experience to bear. We must work together as a team to make sure that the armed forces are able to protect lives and property of Nigerians. If we cannot do that, the reputation of the country will continue to go down.

"A number of issues are being raised in the media; there is so much of challenge in the Armed Forces and other security agencies in the country. All of us collectively must stand up for our own responsibilities and go the extra mile to see that as a nation, we overcome these challenges."

He urged the newly promoted officers to justify their new positions by working extra hard to save the country from the security challenges.

Major General Nimyel who spoke on behalf of the newly promoted officers  pledged their loyalty to him and the armed forces while assuring that they would rededicate themselves to service of their fatherland.

At the end of the Boko Haram attack on the 202 Tank, residents of the town revealed that three innocent civilians and several other suspected terrorists were killed as it took the fire power of a military fighter jet bombardment to dislodge the insurgents.
Eyewitnesses told journalists that the hoodlums tried to gain access to the barrack through the Cameroonian border road of Gulumba.

Bama is 78 kilometres southeast of Maiduguri, where several attacks which have claimed many lives and property had been launched by the sect this year.

Garba Jibrin, a motorist, who had to make a U-turn at Konduga town to Maiduguri when he got wind of the attack on the Bama Barrack said he saw troops and their patrol vehicles and equipment moving towards the barracks in the morning.

“I was already at Konduga town, when a Good Samaritan told me that the Maiduguri-Bama road was not safe to travel. When I asked further, he told me that Boko Haram gunmen came to attack the army barracks in Bama, but they were killed by the soldiers.
“Based on what I was told, the insurgents came in the afternoon on Thursday and settled to strategise on Gulumba Road. One of the residents of Bama went and informed the military about the presence of suspected insurgents on the road. This helped the soldiers to ambush the insurgents before they could attack the barrack as they did in Maiduguri on December 2, 2015 at the Nigerian Air Force base."

Confirming the incident yesterday in Maiduguri, the acting spokesman of 7 Division of Nigerian Army, Captain Aliyu Danja said the army  repelled and crushed the insurgents. "The soldiers were able to kill several members of the Islamist sect."
He said several arms and vehicles of the insurgents were also destroyed in the aerial bombardments that followed.

Danja however did not reveal the actual number of casualties, insisting that details would be made available to journalists later when the troops return from the field.

Kabiru Sokoto who was sentenced to life imprisonment was found guilty of training over 500 men on how to manufacture and detonate improvised explosive devices and having the prior knowledge that the Boko Haram sect planned to bomb the church on Christmas Day but failed to disclose it to any law enforcement officer as soon as reasonably practicable.
The Christmas Day bombing resulted into the death of 44 persons while 75 others were wounded. Sokoto was first arraigned on April 19 on a two-count charge by the Federal Government.

He was also found guilty of having facilitated the commission of terrorist acts including planting bombs at the police headquarters and some government organizations in the state between 2007 and 2012, at Mabira Sokoto, Sokoto State,

In his judgement, Justice Adeniyi Ademola held that the court found as a fact that the accused person was the mastermind of the 2011 Christmas Day bombing.

The judge said that the accused person did not controvert the evidence brought against him. He further held that the court agreed with the prosecution that the case against the accused person had been proved beyond reasonable doubt adding that the two statements of the accused person was admitted in evidence without opposition from the defence counsel.

The court however held that the fact that the accused denied the commission of the offence in his oral testimony did not affect the testimonies of the witnesses brought by the prosecution.

Justice Ademola also noted that the accused person was a pathological liar who deceived the court that he did not understand English Language when it was evident before the court that he (Sokoto) had four credits in the West African Examination Council and also worked as a Laboratory Scientist.
He further noted that the attitude of the accused person during the trial did not show any remorse.

In the final analysis, the court held that the accused person was guilty of carrying terrorist attack in Sokoto State and also aware of the bombing of the Catholic Church in Madalla but failed to disclose same to security agents.

"In the final analysis, the accused person, Kabiru Umaru, a.k.a Kabiru Sokoto, member of an illegal terrorist group, Boko Haram, did facilitate terrorist attack in Mabira, Sokoto state and on other government agencies and thereby committed an offense and punishable under Section 15(2) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC Act.

"You are also guilty of having a prior knowledge of the bombing of the Madalla Catholic Church and failed to disclose same to any of the security agents, thereby committing an offence and punishable under Section 71 of the Terorrism Prevention  Act 2011.

"The first charge attracts a life imprisonment while the second charge attracts 10 years imprisonment. The court takes cognizance that the attack on Madalla Catholic Church was a Christmas Day which is celebrated by everybody irrespective of the tribe and religion, such act is barbaric and devilish.
"The accused person is accordingly sentenced to life imprisonment on the first count and 10 years on the second count and it should run consecutively."

The last prosecution witness had told the court that Sokoto confessed that one of the recognized leaders of the sect, Abubakar Shekau, told him that only members of the sect that had been initiated into the “Shurah” cadre, were allowed to know the ideology behind the current insurgency in the northern parts of the country.

The witness told the court that Sokoto had further disclosed that whereas members of the “Shurah” which he belonged to, plan and mastermind attacks, others were recruited to execute terrorist agenda of the sect.

However, Sokoto, through his counsel, faulted the testimony of the masked witness, maintaining that he used the Hausa word “Anche” in his statement, a word he said meant “they said.”

He told the court that he was only referring to what he was told by those affiliated to the sect.