Muhammad Bello Yabo, a respected Islamic scholar from Sokoto State, has expressed his outrage over the recent bombing of Maulud celebrants in Tudun Biri village, Kaduna State, by the Nigerian military. He said that the incident was one of many examples of the security crises plaguing the northern region of the country.
In a video clip that went viral on social media, Shaikh Yabo lamented that the north was suffering from multiple threats, including banditry, hunger, and indiscriminate attacks by the security forces. He said that such bombings never happened in the southern or eastern parts of Nigeria, and blamed the lack of unity among the northern leaders for the situation.
“It was not the first time the bombs were dropped on innocent people by security agencies, and they will claim it was a mistake. They once targeted IDPs in Borno. Same in Yobe, they also dropped a bomb in Nasarawa, and now it happened in Kaduna,” he said.
“North is bleeding, bandits kill us, hunger kills us, and the military that are supposed to protect us are also killing us. This is too much for us. Who do we report to if not Allah, and we are telling him to have mercy on us and protect us.”
Shaikh Yabo also accused the Nigerian government of injustice and double standards, citing the case of Tukur Mamu, a Kaduna-based publisher who was arrested and detained for allegedly facilitating negotiations between terrorists and families of abducted Kaduna-Abuja train passengers last year.
He contrasted Mamu’s ordeal with that of Sunday Igboho, a Yoruba Nation agitator who was arrested in Benin Republic for leading attacks against Fulani communities in the south-west. He said that Igboho was released after his Yoruba kinsmen intervened on his behalf, while Mamu was still languishing in jail without any support from his northern brothers.
“His Yoruba kinsmen intervened on his behalf, and he was later released. If it was a northerner that did what Sunday Igboho did, his northern kinsmen would have been the ones calling for his death by sacrificing him. Today, where is our brother Tukur Mamu? His only offense was to intervene between the terrorists and the victims’ families,” he said.
“He was not the only person doing the same because even the security agencies are involved in playing an intermediary role. Today, they tagged him a terrorist for playing an intermediary role between the terrorists and the victims’ family. Till date, he is in detention, and we have not heard any northern figure talking about Tukur Mamu. Everybody knows that Mamu’s continuous detention is pure injustice. We know Tukur Mamu better than you because he is our brother.”
He urged the northerners to unite and stop envying each other, and appealed to the military to do everything possible to reduce the killings of innocent lives in the north. He also called for dialogue and reconciliation among the various ethnic and religious groups in the country.
