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Mohammed Ali Ndume, serving senator from Borno State, appears in an Abuja Magistrate Court, charged with breach of trust and criminal intimidation

Mohammed Ali Ndume, the senator representing Borno South Senatorial District in the National Assembly and member of the Usman Gaji Galtimari-led Presidential Committee on Security Challenges in the North-East zone, will remain a detainee of the State Security Services, SSS, till Tuesday, December 6.

That was the order given by Oyebode Oyewumi, a chief magistrate, who presided over the arraignment of the senator last week, November 22, at a magistrate court in Wuse, Abuja. Ndume, was arraigned on charges of felony, with Ali Sada Umar Konduga, a.k.a. Usman Al-Zawahiri, a self confessed spokesman of the dreaded Boko Haram terrorist group in Nigeria.

 His journey to detention started when Oyewumi entered the court and C.I.Osagie, the prosecutor, read out the one-count charge against Ndume, designated as the first accused person and Konduga, as second accused. Osagie said that the accused persons conspired to commit felony, breach of official trust, criminal intimidation by anonymous communication by sending messages to some senior public officials including the Attorney-General of the Federation ,AGF, contrary to Sections 79, 98 and 398 of the Criminal Procedure Code, CPC.

Ndume, who was clad in a white apparel popularly called agbada in Nigeria, pleaded not guilty to the charge while Konduga admitted guilty. Speaking through one Mustapha Shehu Ismail, an interpreter, Konduga   asked the court for leniency as the offence had already been committed.

He admitted before the court that he was behind the threat text messages sent to Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria; Babangida Aliyu, governor of Niger State, and his Jigawa State counterpart, Sule Lamido. Other personalities he admitted sending messages to were Sanusi Daggash, a former minister; Seriki Tafida, an ambassador and Justice Sabo Adamu, chairman of the Borno State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal.

 Konduga’s plea of guilt attracted a corresponding sentence from Oyewumi. In his judgement, the magistrate said: “In view of the plea of guilty by the second accused person and having failed to show why he should not be convicted, he is hereby convicted for the offence of criminal intimidation contrary to Section 398 of the CPC.”

He, however, did not pronounce the jail term because the prosecution made a request that the conviction be stayed since investigation was almost completed and that the accused persons be remanded in the custody of the SSS. The magistrate granted the request.

He also granted a request made by counsel to Ndume that the SSS should guarantee accused persons unhindered access to their lawyers and doctors. This was after Ndume had complained that he suffers from prostate cancer and had not taken his medication since the eve of his arraignment. He told the court that he never anticipated that he would spend the night in SSS custody when he was arrested.

The magistrate later adjourned the case till Tuesday, December 6. That was after he rejected a bid by C. I. Nnaemeka, counsel to Ndume, to secure his bail immediately. The magistrate insisted that a formal application be filed.

The ongoing trial of Ndume had been made possible by information provided to the SSS by Konduga, upon arrest and interrogation. At the SSS headquarters in Abuja, a day before he appeared in court, Konduga narrated to the public, through the media, how his group had allegedly received support from the Senator.

Konduga had, in his confessional statement, disclosed that the group started as a collection of political thugs during the regime of a former Borno State governor but fell out with him when one of their major sponsors who was a commissioner under Modu Sheriff, a former governor of Bornu State, was dropped from the state cabinet and later killed by security operatives in a crackdown on the sect members.

The death of the commissioner, he said, was responsible for the opposition of the group against the ex-governor as well as in the decision to support any other political party against the ex-governor. The war against the former governor, he also said, was the reason for the escalation of bloodshed in the state as the group had carried out several attacks and killed scores of people in the North and Abuja.

Al-Zawahiri, corroborated the claim made by Marilyn Ogar, deputy director and SSS spokesperson, who anchored the parade of the Boko Haram, spokesman before journalists last week. Ogar told journalists that Pinda, a former ambassador, became the main financier of the group when it fell out with the ex-governor, and that the ambassador used them to cause crisis in the state while the battle to unseat the former governor lasted.

Highlights of some of the admissions allegedly made by Konduga were read out to journalists. Part of it read thus:  “That he was recruited by a political party stalwart in Maiduguri, Borno State; that following the compulsory registration of all SIM cards nationwide, he was asked to steal a SIM card which he used in sending threat text messages, and also that the pseudo name, Usman Al-Zawahiri, was given to him by the said politician to portray him as an extremist as well as conceal his true identity.”

 Konduga was said to have also confirmed that “one of his benefactors promised to pay him N10 million to work for his party but by stint of fate, he died on his way to deliver the part payment of five million Naira (N5 million) to him; that he was behind the threat messages sent to the justices of the Election Tribunal in Maiduguri. His objective was to ensure that the tribunal sacked the present government in Borno State. That most of the threat text messages he sent to Justice Sabo Adamu, were scripted and relayed to him by the National Assembly member.”

Konduga later revealed that Pinda died on his way to the sect’s hideout to deliver N5 million as part payment of a N10 million running expenses for the group which was contacted to work for his (Pinda) political party. He refused to state categorically, if Ndume was a financier of the group, but admitted that they have a good relationship with him.

Indeed, Ndume is well known to members of Boko Haram. He admitted this much in an interview he granted an Abuja-based daily newspaper, published on Sunday, October 2. In the interview, he spoke about his relationship with the group, what he knows about them and how to end insecurity in the region. He argued that while President Goodluck Jonathan wants the Boko Haram insurgency tackled with sincerity, many persons in government are not doing so.

On his relationship with the group, he specifically said: “As a member of the committee and as a senator from Borno State where the centre of the controversy is, we established contact with members of the so-called Boko Haram, and they expressed their willingness to dialogue, although most of them were not very keen or desperate about it. I personally established contacts with some of them.”

He also admitted in the interview that a number of Boko Haram members come from his local government. He said: One of the local governments that is worst affected is my own Gwoza local government area of Borno State. And even in Maiduguri, the area they had conflict with the military is called Kalari, Gozari and London Ciki. The majority of the people there are my people. And this is something that affects me, to some extent, directly or indirectly. So, we tried to reach out to them, and the room for dialogue is there.”

In his analysis of the security situation in the North-East zone, Ndume showed a clear understanding of what the picture is and how the group is composed of. “This issue of insecurity in the country or the issue of Boko Haram is more complicated than you think. There are now three aspects to Boko Haram issues. There is the original Boko Haram. There is the political Boko Haram. There is the criminal Boko Haram. …Those who engage in criminality are the criminal Boko Haram. Those who issue political statements are the political Boko Haram. Those who are the original Boko Haram are the followers of Muhammad Yusuf, headed now by Abubakar Shikkau. He was the second in command.”

He denied ever meeting Yusuf, the late leader of the group, but that he once received a tape issued by him and sent to him by the members. Ndume revealed also that members of the group extensively operate through the use of telephones.