The Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar El-Kanemi, has said that strangers who came to settle in Borno brought terrorism into the North-East state in the name of acquiring Qur’anic education.
The monarch stated this when he hosted the Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen. Jimmy Akpor, in his palace on Tuesday, November 29,
He said both Borno and the Federal Governments had done well in the fight against terrorism and rehabilitation and resettlement of victims across the state.
Recounting how Boko Haram took control of 17 out of 27 Local Government Areas of Borno state before President Muhammadu Buhari took over power in 2015, the Shehu of Borno added that no local government in the state is currently under the control of any terrorist group.
He said; “Boko Haram is something meaningless, mindless, without any sense of direction.
“None of the holy books either the Holy Qu’ran or Bible indicate that you kill one another, show disrespect to people, burn people’s property and cause distress.
“We don’t know that ideology, we don’t know how they decided to do this.
“These people came to Borno simply because Borno is home of peace and hospitality; the Borno people like strangers, they like one another, they were doing their legitimate and local businesses.
“So these people came to Borno and requested for a place to settle while not knowing that they have an ideology which they came with and polluted the minds of the youths and created havoc in this part of the country.
“So many people died, many people were killed at that time, it was a very sympathetic situation around 2009; that was maybe three months or so months of my appointment, because I was appointed in March 2009.
“They killed our imams, they killed pastors, they burnt mosques and churches, they killed our district heads, village and community leaders, traditional rulers and even one of our Amir, Amir Warda, was killed here in Borno.
“They detonated bomb on me, but lucky enough I escaped with the late deputy governor.”
The monarch also lamented that terrorism has serious economic consequences to the state, including the disruption of electricity supply and closure of Maiduguri airport at one time.
He further stated that the nation’s porous borders provided opportunity for the terrorists to come in any time, do whatever they like and go back to their respective countries.
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