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It was long overdue. Every Nigerian knows this.
Most Nigerians had long expected the Department of State Security (DSS) or the Nigerian military to have arrested Alhaji Tukur Mamu and his master, Ahmed Sheik Gumi since over two years ago, for what everybody clearly perceived as aiding and abetting terrorism in Nigeria.
The reason for the recent arrest and ongoing investigation of Alhaji Tukur Mamu, currently media assistant to Ahmed Gumi and the lead negotiator between bandits and the passengers kidnapped from a Kaduna-bound train in March by the DSS is still shrouded in secrecy.
But it is an open secret that for over two years now, Gumi has been meeting and discussing with dreaded Fulani herdsmen and bandits in their so-called forest hideouts in the name of negotiating with them, whatever that means.
Yet, for all those years, Nigerian security authorities appeared to give him a clean bill of liberty or even authorization to interact freely with the terrorists and bandits.
Yet, these are the same terrorists our security forces have ostensibly engaged in a war without end for over many years now. The same people who, armed with automatic AK47 rifles, have for years been killing, maiming and raping Nigerians across the country, devastating farmlands and sacking entire communities.
Yet, until today, the Federal government or Nigerian security organs have looked the other way.
Whereas the Federal organization, Fulani herdsmen, which was declared by the United Nations as the fourth most dangerous terrorist organization in the world is treated as a sacred cow.
About one year ago, a popular Nollywood veteran, Chief Chinwetalu Agu, was arrested by the Nigerian military at Onitsha while he was distributing bread to indigent members of the public, for wearing a cloth that had the colour of the Biafran rising sun emblem, but with no inscription of IPOB or Biafra.
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After thoroughly humiliating him by ordering him to sit on the bare ground and dragging him on the ground for several minutes, his captors took him to their office at Onitsha, from there to Enugu, from there to Abuja and back, before releasing him.
In the past years, Gumi has been shuttling to and fro the terrorists hideouts in various forests where the Nigerian soldiers are unable to enter, or so we are told, not once, not twice, not thrice, in fact uncountable times, as publicly disclosed by himself on each visit.
After each visit and meeting with the terrorists, Gumi returns to town to make public advocacy for State pardon, and even compensation for the terrorists and their sister bandits. What a country!
Everybody expected that the army will arrest or prosecute Gumi all this while, since these heardsmen have been a torn in our flesh.
When the army did not arrest him, we expected the DSS or the police to arrest and interrogate Gumi for associating with people openly declared as terrorists by the Federal government. The DSS or police did not arrest him.
The questions we keep asking are:
1. How did Gumi get the initial contact with the terrorists and bandits?
2. Who led him or showed him the route to their hideouts
3. Why did security agents do not deem it important to scrutinize Gumi’s phones for possible terrorists’ phone contacts/locations.
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In the case of Tukur Mamu, it is suggested that because of the apparent indifference or of the Nigerian security organs to Gumi’s activities which borders of felony in layman’s parlance, people began to see him as a demi-god and an untouchable who is above the law.
That could explain how a person of the status of a newspaper publisher like Alhaji Tukur could become a media assistant to Gumi in the mode of big man serving big man.
So now that Gumi has established himself as a lord in kidnap negotiation, it became necessary to have an assistant negotiator in the person of Alhaji Tukur and rising to the level of lead negotiator in the Kaduna-bound train passengers kidnap in March this year, himself also assuming the status of an untouchable by the DSS. Perhaps no wonder he was arrested by Interpol outside the shores of Nigeria.
Now we hear from the DSS that certain items have been found in Mamu’s house, including military uniforms and a large stash of local and foreign currencies.
I stop here, courtesy of DSS caution against public utterances on the Mamu arrest and investigations.
But let it be said that there is one law for all Nigerians which should be applied as such. Not different laws for different parts of the country.
If the DSS or the Nigerian military had acted on Mamu’s case as “dutifully” and “forcefully” as they did on the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, they would not be waking up only now about Alhaji Tukur Mamu.
Meanwhile, we are all eyes and all ears, watching to see and hear the outcome of Mamu’s arrest and investigation.
The same way we watched and heard the outcome of the arrest of Boko Haram members in the northern part of the country, how they repented within a few weeks of their arrest and were sent to overseas training and eventually absorbed into the Nigerian army while some of them were made emirs. What a country.
Let us wait and see the outcome of Mamu’s arrest and investigation.
Let us wait and see whether Mamu will found liable and if so, whether he will also repent or not. Read more.
Mazi Omife I. Omife (Mbuze Mbaukwu)
National President, Association of South East Past Presidents General (ASEPP)
omifelord@gmail.com
