By Ishaya Ibrahim
Acting News Editor
Three people – Ahmed Salkida, Aisha Wakil, and Ahmed Bolori – are the subject of the latest investigation by the military into the abduction of the Chibok girls, but it seems the main target is Salkida.
TheNiche learnt that the others were lumped into the mix so as not to alarm Salkida, the journalist with uncommon access to Boko Haram, whose birth name is Daniel John (Salkida being the name of his homestead).
At press time, Salkida was yet to return to Nigeria from his base in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
He requested the army, which declared him wanted, to provide him with a flight ticket to facilitate his trip. It is not clear whether the army would oblige him.
Why declare us wanted?
The other two, Bolori and Wakil, who made themselves available to the army, were granted bail 24 hours after being quizzed.
Bolori is a native of Maiduguri Metropolitan Council (MMC) in Borno State and is the coordinator of Partnership Against Violent Extremism (PAVE).
He has demanded an apology from the army for declaring him wanted when they could have easily reached him at his home in Maiduguri. He said the action has caused trauma for him and his family.
Wakil, an Igbo lady who converted to Islam in her undergraduate days at the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), is a lawyer and member of the Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North East. She is married to a High Court judge in Maiduguri.
Wakil also wondered why she was declared wanted when she is easily accessible to the army.
Former Newswatch Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Yakubu Mohammed said: “As a lay man, I think it was unwise for security to declare potential informants publicly wanted.
“In what way can they help the authorities if they have been publicly invited to come and volunteer information? Are they not being put in harm’s way with Boko Haram?
“But as it has turned out, these people apparently are not on the run. From what we now know, the security agencies know them and know where they live.
“Some of the wanted people have even confirmed their relationship with security agents.”
But the army said it declared the three wanted for their alleged links with the jihadists.
Acting Director of Army Public Relations, Colonel Sani Usman, said: “There is no doubt that these individuals have links with Boko Haram Terrorists and have contacts with them.
“They must therefore come forward and tell us where the group is keeping the Chibok girls and other abducted persons to enable us rescue them.”
From church to mosque
Salkida hails from Borno State. He was born into a Christian family and was a member of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA).
He embraced Islam in the mid 2000s when he met Mohammed Yusuf, the then leader of Boko Haram.
Their relationship blossomed. But Salkida was more professional about it – a journalist meeting a source.
He interviewed Yusuf in 2006. The respect between them was mutual – one, an idealistic Islamic scholar; the other, a journalist.
The man who understands Shekau
Through Yusuf, Salkida became an acquaintance of Shekau.
He later diagnosed Shekau’s persona in an interview with the BBC. “He is a fearless loner, a complex, paradoxical man – part intellectual, part gangster.
“He is one of those who believe that you can sacrifice anything for your belief. He hardly talks, he is fearless.
He is fluent in his native Kanuri, Hausa and Arabic languages – he does not speak English. I used to joke with him that he should teach me Arabic and I would teach him English.”
Salkida told the BBC that Shekau has a photographic memory and is well versed in theology.
“He is nicknamed Darul Tawheed which translates as a specialist in Tawheed. This is an orthodox doctrine of the uniqueness and oneness of Allah, which is the very cornerstone of Islam.”
In 2009, when Boko Haram was rounded up by the administration of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, Shekau was thought to have died.
Even in 2009, those who knew Shekau said he would have toppled Yusuf, who was slain by the police that year, because Yusuf had resisted the pressure from him to take up arms against the Nigerian state.
In 2011, Shekau announced himself alive and declared that he was the leader of the militant Islamist group after taking several jihadist lessons, including making Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and the technique of suicide bombing, from Al-Qaida operatives in the Maghreb.
Leading the military to Shekau
Salkida returned again as the go-between Boko Haram and the rest of the world in 2011 when he published the rare picture of the suicide bomber who blew Police Headquarters in Abuja.
A PREMIUM TIMES report on August 15, 2016 quoted Salkida as telling Farook Kperogi, an associate professor of journalism at Kennesaw State University, United States, that “I can get all the scoops I asked, but out of fear I introduced some reporters or forfeit my scoops to avoid being considered as too close to the sources.
“Sadly, that was how I ended up being viewed with suspicion …. I can go to Sambisa [forest] now to interview Shekau at my own risk, is this a journalistic feat or a crime?”
Salkida has refused to divulge his sources of information to the military, a cardinal principle in journalism to “keep the identity of your sources confidential.”
He said he had come under threats for not betraying his sources, even when he made it clear that doing so would not end the war.
But a source alerted that Salkida may be compelled this time around to disclose the identities of his interview subjects, a move the military hope would lead to the capture of Shekau.
“Just like the Barack Obama administration boasts of killing Osama bin Laden, the current administration wants to score that point too in the killing of Shekau,” our source said.