The Borno Government says it plans to put in place machinery that will prevent the re-incarnation of the Boko Haram insurgents in the state in different guise in the nearest future.
Gov. Kashim Shettima stated this on Thursday at the joint inauguration of the State Islamic Preaching Board and the Pilgrims Welfare Board in Maiduguri.
Shettima said that since the insurgents had been known to reincarnate in different forms in the past, proactive measures must be taken to stop them from coming back.
“While we are celebrating the defeat of Boko Haram in Maiduguri and other parts of the state, most people tend to pay less attention to history.
“If we cast our minds back to 12 or 13 years, we will realise that the same group had had the history of being defeated, going under for some years, regrouping and coming back in different form,’’ he said.
Shetima said that the group went under after an attack in 2003 in Kanama in Yobe after suffering defeat in the hands of security agents.
“They regrouped in 2004 and carried out attacks on police stations in Bama and Gwoza, got defeated and melted into the air.
“But in 2007 they appeared in Panshekara in Kano State, got defeated and disappeared again,’’ he said.
Shettima said that the group transformed into the Yusufiyya movement in 2009 with mass followers in Maiduguri, Bauchi and Potiskum.
“They were defeated by the security agents after the 2009 crisis. But they regrouped in December 2010 and were chased out of Maiduguri in 2013 and 2014.
“They shifted to local government areas and caused mass destruction of lives and property,’’ he said.
The governor said that the group had always engaged in open preaching in its mass recruitment drive.
“They recruit their members mostly through open preaching to sell their ideologies to unsuspecting youths.
“They had leaders who preached in Mosques and special gatherings without showing violence at the initial stages,’’ he said.
Shettima said that government would take concrete steps toward preventing the group from coming back in any guise in the state through concerted efforts.
“We must take firm and consistent knowledge-based steps to separate those clerics who preach in the name of God and those who kill innocent souls and say it is in the name of God,’’ he said.
Shettima urged members of the two boards to justify their appointment by working for the progress of the state. (NAN)