release the $7 million bounty it placed on the head of the leader of
the Boko Haram Islamist sect, Abubakar Shekau. This is coming 10 days
after the Joint Task Force announced that the sect leader had died
from gunshot wounds he sustained in an encounter with the task force
on June 30.
In June 2012, the US Department of State had designated Shekau a
terrorist and froze his assets in America, while offering a $7 million
reward for his capture.
Explaining why the US was yet to redeem its pledge on the reward for
killing the Boko Haram leader, outgoing Ambassador of the US to
Nigeria, Terence McCulley, told newsmen shortly after his visit to the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, in Abuja,
that his country was not fully satisfied with Nigeria's war against
terrorism.
He said: "I can say you are talking about the Reward for Justice
Programme, which indeed offers a reward for help in apprehending the
leader of Boko Haram.
"But I can't say that the United States has been very satisfied with
the work that has been done in helping to counter the threat of
violent extremism in the region.
"But we certainly salute the work that Nigeria has done as a regional
leader to contain the spread of violent extremism."
He assured that fight against violent extremism would continue not
only in Nigeria but any country or region that is faced with the
menace.
McCulley said: "We have strongly criticised the violence perpetrated
by Boko Haram and we have called for measures targeted at checkmating
this threat.
"And we express our hope that going forward, the government of Nigeria
will be able to contain the threat posed by Boko Haram."
Residents to sue FG
Meanwhile, Borno State residents have threatened to sue the Federal
Government and its security agencies for detaining their relatives and
making them inaccessible.
The residents, through a human rights group, Civil Rights Congress of
Nigeria, led by Sheu Sani in Kano, said security forces in the state
were carrying out night raids in residential neighborhoods.
According to AFP report, distraught relatives have, therefore, asked
the army, the police, intelligence services and government officials
where the arrested people were to no avail and that no one even knows,
or is saying, how many people have been detained.
The rights group said it had received about 3,000 calls from people
across northern Nigeria, that loved ones had disappeared after being
arrested by the military or police in the past three years.
Sani said: "If we go to the police, the police will say that they are
not with them but may be with the military. The military will say they
must be with the intelligence service.
"The intelligence service say they don't keep detainees — even though
they do— that they hand them over to police. So there is this cycle of
confusion. The conditions in which people are being detained is very
secretive."
"My 3 children missing"
One Habiba Saadu said his two sons and her daughter were taken on
August 3 by soldiers that went from house to house in a night raid in
Maiduguri, accusing them of participating in the Boko Haram uprising.
"Up to now, I have never seen my children," Saadu said.
Saadu said her visits to police stations, the army barracks, the
intelligence services and local politicians gave no clue to the
whereabouts of her children.
Asked about the disappearance of the suspected Boko Haram members, the
Joint Task Force spokesman, Lt-Col Sagir Musa, told The Associated
Press that "if they are arrested, then they are being held."
In its half-year report published last month, the Federal Prison
Service said it was holding 202 Boko Haram suspects by the end of
June.
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