OFFICIALS of the State Security Service, SSS, in Borno State, yesterday, confirmed that they have dealt dreaded sect, Boko Haram, a major blow by arresting the spokesman of the group Abul Qaqa. He was reportedly arrested in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
The arrest was effected via GPS tracking of the top Boko Haram chieftain. It was learnt that the SSS has flown Qaqa to Abuja for further interrogation.
A top official of the SSS in Borno said on telephone that: “We have finally picked him up and he is currently in our custody; you can report that as a confirmed development”.
Also confirming the arrest of Abul- Qaqa, one of the sect members in a telephone interview with newsmen in Maiduguri said: ‘’Our spokesman Abul- Qaqa was arrested by security operatives yesterday.”
He, however, did not state where in Maiduguri the arrest was effected but he said, in Hausa: Nakira ku in gaya muku cewa an kama Mallam Qaqa, meaning “I called to tell you that security agencies have arrested one of our scholars, Mallam Qaqa.” The first spokesman of Boko Haram, Ali Sanda Umar Kondoga alias Usman Alzawahiri was arrested on November 3, last year.
The arrest of Qaqa came against the backdrop of claims in Kaduna yesterday by the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, that the ultimatum by the Boko Haram Islamic sect on southerners living in the North to quit was in reaction to an earlier order by South-South militants on Northerners to quit their area.
ACF said that the South-South militants were the first to ask northerners living in their area to leave, adding that this was what made the Boko Haram to issue the same ultimatum on Christians and other southerners to leave the North.
Last weekend, Qaqa had threatened that Boko Haram would unleash terror against the people of Sokoto in the same manner it attacked Kano city the previous week following allegations that security agents had been arresting members of the group indiscriminately in the seat of the Caliphate. He had asked the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar 111; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal and the Acting Governor of the state to intervene to prevent the proposed attack.
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