FG’s amnesty committee lied against me – Boko Haram Suspect, Kabiru Sokoto

Alleged kingpin of the Boko Haram sect, Kabiru Umar, a.k.a Kabiru Sokoto, Monday, accused the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North, of feeding Nigerians with lies, insisting that contrary to reports widely circulated in the media on Friday, he never met with any member of the committee.

Sokoto who was accused of masterminding the Christmas day bomb blast that killed about 44 persons and wounded 75 others at St. Theresa's Catholic Church at Madalla, Niger State, in 2011, maintained that as at the time the committee said it met him at Kuje Prison, he was standing trial before the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court.

While refuting the report, the accused person who spoke through his lawyer, Mr. Sheriff Okoh, after Justice Ademola Adeniyi adjourned his trial to Thursday, accused the committee of "brandishing lies."

According to him, "I think the press is supposed to pick information, investigate such information before making it available to the public. But I think what they have been doing in this regard is to sit down and wait for people to feed them with lies.

For instance our client has pleaded not guilty in this matter and we are doing our best to see how it is established that he is not guilty as he has pleaded.
"For those of you that were in court, it is clear that our client never masterminded the Madalla bomb blast. They have told the whole world that they have visited Kabiru Sokoto at Kuje prison.

"In fact that he was in the prison together with more than 40 other people who were under arrest or detention and that they have discussed.

"Sincerely, Kabiru Sokoto, we have asked him and he has confirmed again and again that no member of the amnesty committee, or anybody who is their privy or agent visited him with respect to the issue of amnesty or otherwise.

"That means that these honourable members of the Nigerian society have been brandishing lies about a process that they have on their own initiated and agreed to carry on.

"This is very wrong because we expect that they will be honourable men and state exactly, things that have taken place and what they have experienced, and not lying to Nigerians.

"Now, most fundamentally, we want to state categorically that our client has said he is not guilty. We will wait for the trial to be concluded then we will go ahead and follow everything up accordingly. But for now we believe in the integrity of the Judge, we believe in the integrity of the court and we believe in the sanctity of our democracy," he added.

It would be recalled that a 17-member committee led by its Chairman and Minister of Special Duties, Alhaji Tanimu Turaki, had on Friday, disclosed that they had met with some suspected members of the Boko Haram sect detained at the Kuje Maximum Security Prison , among whom reportedly included Kabiru Sokoto.

Turaki who briefed State House correspondents said the purport of the meeting was to further unearth more facts about the Boko Haram sect.

President Goodluck Jonathan had on April 24, inaugurated the committee with a mandate to proffer solutions to the Boko Haram insurgence within three months.

Jonathan stressed that the committee was expected to establish link and open up dialogue with members of the sect, as well as, develop a framework for their disarmament, adding that they should equally work out a sustainable option that would lead to the granting of amnesty to the sect.

Meantime, at the resumed hearing on the terrorism case against Sokoto yesterday, a masked prosecution witness who was simply identified as "Mr ABC" due to the sensitive nature of the case, narrated before the court how a donation of N40million, divided the Boko Haram sect.

According to the witness, Sokoto had in a statement he made on January 14, 2012, confessed that out of the said N40million which he said was received from another terrorist group in Algeria, he got the sum of N500, 000, being the recognized Governor of Sokoto State in the hierarchy of the group.

He told the court that the accused person admitted that he used his share of the money and bought Quran and other Islamic religious books, even as he allegedly volunteered the names of two members of the sect that bombed Catholic church at Madalla, Niger State, on Christmas day.

The witness further told the court that Sokoto gave the names of the two perpetrators as Bashir Mohammed and Muhktar Kafanchan, noting that the federal government is currently on the trail of the said culprits.

Besides, "Mr ABC", testified that the accused person confessed that it was not suicide bombers that attacked the church, but that the bombs were detonated from a car that was parked near the church.

Likewise, the second witness that testified yesterday, "Mr DEF", narrated before the court how Sokoto hid behind a wardrobe on February 10, 2012, a day he was re-arrested at Sabongida in Taraba state, few days after he escaped from police custody in Abuja.

The witness who is an operative of the Department of State Service, DSS, told the court that upon his arrest, Sokoto was found with a Nokia phone and six different Sim cards.