TIGHTENING THE NOOSE AROUND SPONSORS OF TERROR IN OUR WAR AGAINST TERROR : Boko Haram: JTF detains Borno ANPP chairman

Borno State Chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Alhaji Mala Othman, has been arrested by the military Joint Task Force (JTF) following covert reports linking him with Boko Haram.

Only last week, Alhaji Othman’s house was burnt down by youths vigilante group, now christened as ‘Civilian JTF,’ in Maiduguri, after accusing him of being a senior member of the deadly sect.

The ANPP chairman is an associate of a former Governor of the state, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff.

According to the youths, Alhaji Othman was allegedly  involved in the activities of ECOMOG, a youth militant group in Borno State, formed in 2003.

Meanwhile, Presidential Committee on Security Challenges in the North-East, headed by Ambassador Usman Galtimari, had claimed that ECOMOG created the fertile ground for the growth and spread of Boko Haram.

However the ANPP has risen in defence of their chairman. The Secretary of the Borno chapter of the party, Malam Bakura Shettima, issued a statement claiming  that Othman was “an accomplished politician who has the interest of the people and the
development of the state at heart and not a member of Boko Haram.”

Though the reason for his arrest is still unclear, a top military official in Abuja told journalists that, “the ANPP chairman is being held in order to provide him protection. If the JTF had not picked him, he would have been killed by the youths who burnt down his house.”

Nonetheless, reports have it that the detention of the ANPP chairman has created a rift between Alhaji Sheriff, the former governor and Alhaji Kashim Shettima, the current Borno State governor.

The former governor was said to have been mounting pressure on Governor Shettima to cut short his trip to China to effect the release of Alhaji Othman from JTF custody. Alhaji Sheriff was said to have been angry with Governor Shettima (also of the ANPP) because the governor told him that he wouldn’t want to interfere in the work of security agencies, so that he would not be seen as a clog in wheel of the efforts to end the insecurity in Borno State.