Maiduguri, Nigeria - Maiduguri is awash with flags of the outlawed Boko Haram Islamic sect, just a week after the city was thrown into confusion following the spread of a video clip purportedly showing a leader of the sect threatening a revenge of the blow dealt them last year.
The city is now tension-soaked as reports spread that Imam Abubakar Shekau, the deputy leader of the Boko Haram group, is not dead as claimed by the police, and that he will be returning to the city this month to commemorate the 2009 bloodbath.
The report coincides with the one-year anniversary of the notorious Boko Haram crisis in which security operatives engaged the militants in a fierce gun battle, extra-judicially killing its leader Muhammed Yusuf and his father-in-law, Baba Fugu Mohammed, amongst others.
But Borno Police Commissioner, Ibrahim Abdu, dismissed the rumour saying it was a misinformation which was also carried all over the state last December when a digitally manipulated video of Shekau was being circulated through mobile telephone in which the militant was seen delivering war sermons and threatening a revenge.
Abdu said the clip was later found to be fake.But the hoisting of flags believed to belong to the Boko Haram sect in places like the Police Divisional headquarters in Jere, one of the police formations burnt during the last year’s face-off, and near the Shehu of Borno’s palace has heightened tension across the state about possible return of the sect.
Abdu again insisted that the flags were not in any way that of the Boko Haram sect.
“As a matter of fact when we got the wind of the flags being hoisted we rushed there only to find out they were not the known white upon black Boko Haram flags that everyone knows; the two flags were pieces of clothes with printed Arabic inscription, while the real Boko Haram flags we recovered last year was totally different”, the police chief said.
He added that the person arrested in connection with the hoisting of the flag was later found to be a mad man “who has cases of madness in his family.”
There is another dimension to the story.
Critics allege that Borno State Government sponsored the flag hoisting to create an atmosphere of fear and insecurity, targeted at aborting the planned visit to the state of Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the Congress for Political Change (CPC), which is puling crowd in the region.
Sunday Independent gathered that some persons connected to this plot were arrested on Tuesday alongside a very senior aide of Governor Ali Modu-Sheriff by the police.
Sources said the culprits have since been released at the prompting of the governor, while others were whisked to Abuja for questioning.
Both the state government and the police have denied the claim, with the latter accusing government critics of spreading such rumour.
The CP told journalists: “Such rumour is ridiculous because no one has communicated to the command that the CPC leader and former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari will be coming to Borno. As a matter of fact if such story is true, I should be the number one person to be informed because I am with the powers of giving him security while in the state.”
He also denied that any arrest was made in connection with the flag.
Senior Special Adviser to the Governor, Shehu Liberty, said the allegation implicating state government in the Boko Haram flag hoisting was outrageous and ridiculous.
His words: “Much as none of us is even aware that Buhari would be coming to Borno State or when he will be coming, I want to say that this government takes the issue of security very seriously and it will not in any way joke with it.”
Borno CPC Chairman, Zanna Shettima, told Sunday Independent reporter that “we are aware of such development and we are going to contact the security agency to that effect. After that we will issue a statement stating our position on the matter.”