From TIMOTHY OLANREWAJU, Maiduguri and Molly Kilete, Abuja

Many Nigerians were taken aback when the military declared Ahmad Salkida, a journalist, Aisha Wakil, a lawyer and Ahmed Umar Bolori, a businessman wanted last Sunday over their alleged link with Boko Haram. A new video believed to have been released by the terrorists group fueled the declaration of the trio wanted in a statement by the Army spokesman, Colonel Usman Sani.
While some faulted the declaration especially since the trio have not been formally invited by the military, residents of Maiduguri were rather astonished, wondering why people who had previously been involved in linking the authority with Boko Haram suddenly turned to accomplices. “Why is the military declaring them wanted now as if they did not know them before?” asked a retired army personnel based in Maiduguri. A university scholar craving for anonymity also shared a similar view. “Have they not been negotiating with Boko Haram on behalf of government before?” he asked.

What went wrong?
For one, Ahmad Salkida, who is on self-exile in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) hails from Biu Local Government, south of Borno. Salkida had never hidden his closeness to the violent group. In many of his several posts on Facebook and published articles, he had revealed that he was a regular caller at the insurgents’ demolished headquarters in Railways Quarters, Maiduguri, and birthplace of Boko Haram before the July 2009 insurrection. His alleged reportorial activities and utterances in the wake of the insurrection had also put him at conflict with the security agencies in Borno. He was accused of “being a spy” to the group and “going beyond his reportorial job, a claim he repeatedly denied. He subsequently left the state and relocated to Abuja early August 2009 in a very controversial circumstance after appeals to the government by his professional colleagues over his safety.
His name surfaced again when he released the photograph of the Nigerian Police Headquarters Abuja suicide bomber in a news report he authored in Blueprint newspaper, fueling speculations about the level of his link with the terror group. He once revealed in one of his writings that he visited Nigeria three times in 2014 and early 2015 to help the Federal Government, under former President Goodluck Jonathan establish contact with Boko Haram with a view to commencing dialogue. Sources told Saturday Sun that those who were privy to the activities of the Jonathan negotiators which included Salkida and Senator Shehu Sani, Senator representing Kaduna Central, had “strongly advised” President Muhammadu Buhari to distance his administration from the team.
“Buhari is actually disposed to dialogue with known Boko Haram who are ready to embrace peace but he’s wary of the initial negotiators,” a source told Saturday Sun.
Salkida on the other hand, has been very critical of President Buhari’s handling of the Boko Haram crisis, a position many in Borno who knew him alleged was an attempt to draw authority’s attention to invite him to resume the previous assignment as negotiator. The call by Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau in a new video released last week for journalist(s) known to the group to be contacted as link for possible dialogue with government was viewed by security intelligence as a subtle attempt by Salkida to foist himself on the authority as negotiator, the source disclosed. The source also said the nation’s security czars were trying to establish the mission of the video released by Boko Haram in early April 2016 and the recent one. Perhaps, this was the basis of the “two recent incidents” referred to in the army statement.
“Two recent incidents have pointed to the fact that three individuals, namely Ahmed Salkida, Ahmed U Bolori and Aisha Wakil, have information about the exact location of these girls (Chibok schoolgirls),” Col Usman had declared in the statement, citing the Terrorism Prevention Act 2011 (amended) as legal instrument for the army decision to declare the trio wanted.

Mama Boko Haram connection
Mrs Aisha Wakil, a lawyer of Igbo extraction but married to a man from Borno State is popularly known in Borno as Mama Boko Haram due to her link with the insurgents and her disposition to mediating between the group and government. She featured prominently in the aborted mediation between a splinter group led by Muhammed Abdulazeez Ibn Idris, then Boko Haram 2nd Commander in charge of Southern Borno, early February 2013 and Borno State government, a move expected to lead to ceasefire. Wakil had also been involved in dialogue move for the release of abducted Chibok schoolgirls.
In one of her interviews with the media, Aisha described her relationship with Boko Haram as a long-standing one. “They were children I knew a long time ago. The first time I visited Maiduguri around 1989 was when some of them were circumcised. I witnessed the circumcision. That is to tell you how young some of them were – and still are. I witnessed the growth of most of them. They were very wonderful children. As time went on, most of them  lived in my house because my house is always open to children in that area. That was how I got to know most of them. Then they were not Boko Haram and Jama’atu ah-lil Sunnah members”, she disclosed.
She said she often visited the insurgents in the bush, sometimes with roasted meat (suya) and drugs or even cooked for them, pacifying them to embrace peace. From the interview published in 2015, Aisha has continued to maintain closeness with the insurgents since their forceful exit from Maiduguri, their former headquarters. “Whenever I meet them in the bush, we sit down and talk freely like mother and children. They will show me different bombs and ammunitions. I would ask them what they were doing with those things and I would  joke with them. They would burst out laughing, saying “Mama has come again.” Sometimes I would even stay there overnight. Their major requirements were food and drugs. There had been occasions I stayed three days with them in the bush,” she said.
Mrs Wakil hit the limelight when former President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the committee on amnesty for Boko Haram in April 2013 in Abuja, where she appeared covered from head to toe in burqa.
In a region where women are often relegated to the background and given little attention, the mention of the name of Aisha Wakil as a member of the Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the northern part of the country then came to many as a rude shock.
Since then, she has consistently appeared on the list of people released by the Boko Haram insurgents as one of those to represent them in any form of dialogue or negotiation with the government.
At a time the insurgents announced the names of prominent northerners whom they wanted as representatives in their negotiations with the Federal Government, Aisha Wakil and her husband, Justice Zanna Wakil of the Borno State Judiciary, were on the list on which  the then General Muhammadu Buhari was prominent although Buhari later denounced and disowned the group.
One Mohammed Amin Abdullahi, who said Aisha was a friend to his sister, claimed on his Facebook page that Aisha Wakil actually hails from the South-East, but converted to Islam when verses of the Holy Qur’an started appearing on her skin.
He wrote “Barr. Aisha Wakil, I would say, is a mysterious woman. She is Igbo by tribe and was a Christian during her schooling at the University of Maiduguri many years ago. She converted to Islam when inscriptions of verses from the Holy Qur’an started appearing on her skin. Members of the sect became so close to her that they even called her mummy.
“They visited her house at will. She even sold her valuables to feed them, just to convince them to drop their weapons. There was a time she seized from them and burnt a notebook containing the lists of people killed and those to be killed.
“A lot of them confessed to her that they were fed up with the sect activities. She has been trying to convince members to stop their insurgency long before the issue of dialogue and amnesty came up. I got to know all these because she is a close friend of my sister, who is also a human rights activist. I once drove my sister, whose name I don’t want to mention here, to Aisha’s house and had the opportunity of seeing the sect members.”
Barrister Wakil, who works with the National Human Rights Commission, had in another media interview alluded to the insinuation that she was an Igbo lady. She was quoted as saying that she “started the dialogue process since 2009, even before the major crisis erupted, because I knew their slain spiritual leader, Muhammad Yusuf. His father in-law, late Alhaji Baba Fugu Mohammed, was my spiritual father in Islam, and I used to visit his home.
“In fact, Mohammed Yusuf almost married my younger sister Amina, but Almighty Allah did not make it possible. So, that was how I got closer to the duo. It went even to the extent that I was cooking food and taking it to the house of late Alhaji Fugu, to the pupils of the Qur’anic school, (almajari).
“And because I’m from the southern part of the country, I normally prepared southern dishes, which Yusuf had always come to eat. In fact he liked my egusi soup very much and we became very close when his father-in-law told him that I was the one who cooked the food. So, anytime we met, he expressed delight and prayed that Almighty Allah would reward me, for he was eating from my pot and that was how I established a strong relationship with him.
“Though I did not know where he lived at that time, but whenever I visited Fugu’s house, I saw many people trooping to the area and they would later gather behind a particular compound, so I asked Fugu who the people were. He replied that they were the followers of his son-in-law and that they had come to listen to sermon  by the late Boko Haram leader. When the the preaching ended and the closing prayers were going on, I would sometimes walk across to receive the blessings of the prayers.”
Wakil admits knowing some members of the sect saying, “I reside in Shehuri North Ward, the epicentre of the insurgency and I knew majority of the insurgents. So, I sat down and made up my mind, that why would I continue to watch them like that?
“When this thing was about to spring up in 2009, late Yusuf had been detained severally and when he came out of one of the detentions, I went to his house to greet him, but his followers refused to allow me access to him. I was angry and said I would never go to greet him again.
“Upon knowledge that, he rushed to his father-in-law and asked him to plead with me that I should forgive him, saying he was not around when I visited. But three weeks to this problem, I started hearing rumours that they would launch deadly attacks. So, I called him (Yusuf) to my house and when he arrived, I learnt that Abubakar Shekau and other followers had escorted him, but they stayed outside.
“When he entered my house, he didn’t even look directly at my face. He had his two hands behind him and I said to him, “my son, I’m hearing something. These rumours I’m hearing, I beg you in the name of Allah, don’t do it. He said that he was betrayed; I said by whom, he said by government. I asked, can I come into the matter?, He said, alright, if you can intervene and settle it, we are ready.’
“But I was unable to do so due to the protocol in government, especially when it entails meeting governors. I tried all I could to get to the former governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, to discuss the issue, but I wasn’t able to get to him. Later, I spoke to Yusuf’s in-law, telling him that I was not comfortable with the rumours I was hearing but he said there was nothing he could do, as he was over 70 years at the time and that he had written a letter to the government. But he didn’t tell me precisely the content of the said letter.
“I continued to talk to Yusuf and he kept giving me instances of the betrayal. He disclosed that his followers were shot over the use of crash helmet for instance and when their bodies were being taken away for burial, security men they shot them again despite the fact that there was an agreement between the sect and government, they were betrayed.
“In fact, he had seriously lamented this betrayal as I’m talking to you now I don’t know the betrayal he was referring to and nobody has told me about it up till now. Another issue is, I didn’t know the problem would degenerate into mayhem like we have seen, otherwise I would have contacted some of the elders in the state so that they could wade into the matter with a view to finding a solution to it.”
But how was she able to convince the sect members to lay down their arms? She said “it was not easy, it was hell. It was horrifying, scary, because when I spoke with one of them, he directed me to come to a particular place. When I reached the location, I found him with an AK 47 rifle and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
“Afterwards, he said, ‘Mama, why did you risk your life to come here? I said because we are killing ourselves and I want to put a stop to the bloodshed. He said ‘you know I’m not alone’. I replied him that I was aware, and I said but you could talk to others and that was how the whole thing started. I was able to persuade them to come out of their hide-out in the forest and show their faces, promising that they would not be harmed or arrested. I was able to do so because I’m fully involved in  the dialogue procedure.
“After succeeding in convincing some of the insurgents to show up and that their safety would be guaranteed, I was linked with someone and I contacted the Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, who welcomed the development and facilitated several meetings between myself and the insurgents who accepted the dialogue on one hand with the top officials of the state government as well as the Borno Elders Forum, after which the dialogue process was mapped out, leading to ceasefire.”
They, however, gave conditions, which include the need for absolute confidence from government that they would not be arrested, all their members in detention freed and thatcompensation should be paid to the families and relations of all those killed in the violence.
Others were, rebuilding of the enclave of their leader and houses of some members destroyed in the conflicts. They also demanded to be empowered and self-reliant, and that all those involved in the extra-judicial killing of late Yusuf should be prosecuted.”
She was not unmindful of the fact that some members of the sect denied ever agreeing to a ceasefire, but said that the denial could not have come from Abubakar Shekau, leader of the sect. She noted that the leaflets denying the ceasefire did not “emanate from Shekau, because he was in support of the truce and in fact, he was the one who directed Ibn Abdul-Aziz to represent the sect in their agreement.”

The Bolori angle   
Ahmed Umar Bolori is the younger brother to Alhaji Kaka Bolori, PDP candidate in the October 2015 bye-election into Borno Central Senatorial seat. Bolori runs an NGO called Fa’ash Foundation which according to him is for promotion of peace, especially among the youths. His associates said he had also made moves toward establishing contacts with the Nigerian military and Boko Haram in the past for dialogue although his relationship with the insurgents was largely unknown to many people in Borno. His appearance at the Military Command Headquarters, Maiduguri on Monday generated sharp reactions from the people especially with his posts on Facebook, giving the impression that the military personnel he met were unsure of his declaration. Meanwhile, Saturday Sun gathered reliably that the Command Centre accorded him some rights in line with the law of the land. “We treated him as expected of us under the law but he took that to mean we didn’t know what we were doing,” a military legal officer disclosed. Bolori, who turned himself in after he was declared wanted, was said to have regained his freedom on Wednesday, August 17.
While Aisha has already surrendered to military authority in Abuja, Salkida is requesting a flight ticket from the Nigerian military to hasten his return to the country.

Military suspicion
When did these individuals exceeded the mere move to broker peace with Boko Haram as they had always claimed in their reactions when they were declared wanted? Could it be a case of quest for dialogue and mediation with Boko Haram that went awry? Some military sources maintain that the trio have strong ties with the insurgent group through which “they plan to cajole government into another phantom negotiation that will see government lose millions of scarce public funds and at the end of it still end in a fluke, just as we experienced during the last dispensation.” One of the sources who is a red neck officer added that, “this strong feeling within the military intelligence circle informed the decision to declare them wanted, take them in for proper profiling and interrogation.”
Nigerians are however waiting to know how the military handles the issue.

What next for the military?
While only two out of the three persons declared wanted, (Ahmed Bolori and Aisha Wakil) have so far reported to the military authorities, with the third person (Ahmad Sakilda) still holed in Dubai, UAE, Nigerians can’t wait to know the outcome of military interactions with the acclaimed mediators.
When contacted on the matter,  the Director, Army public relations Col. Sani Usman, told Saturday Sun that investigation was still ongoing. When also called to find out what next for the military, the Director, Defence Information Brigadier-General Abubakar Rabe urged Nigerians to be patient with the military, adding that what the military is doing is not strange especially when it has to do with the security of the country. He said the military was not out to harass, arrest or intimidate anybody.
His words “the issue of security is a serious business and requires an in-depth scrutiny. We are not in anyway arresting people or declaring anybody wanted anyhow. However, issues that have to do with national security and national interest of the country, especially now that we are engulfed with various security challenges, all efforts must be geared towards creating a safe haven for the country.
“And any information that is useful I believe we should be able to divulge it in other to get the best of it and sort it out. However, we are not traumatizing or subjecting anybody to anything rather than trying to do what we are supposed to do to our country and thereafter we do the needful.
“And just of recent, you are very much aware that some Boko Haram members who have been cleared were released and the military should be commended for that because that era of impunity has passed. Whatever we do is in compliance with the rule of law and equally in compliance with the current challenges that we are being faced with.
“There is no information that is too little and there is no information that is too big. So any information that would help us to get to where we are going to, to free our country from the hands of these terrorists and any other menace, we would do it.
“But when we interrogate you and you happen to be free, we will release you but when you are not, other arms of the government would have to come in when we need to arrest them and charge them It all depends on what they do and we are operating within that level of the rule of law and other consideration, so we should not feel guilty or otherwise. Whatever we do is in the interest of this country and nothing more than that.”
Asked if the trio of Wakil, Bolori and Sakilda are going to be charged to court, Gen Rabe said “We are doing all we can to ensure that we operate within the law and we will not subject any Nigerian to any hardship. However, the issue of security like we said must be taken seriously and must not be joined with sentiment and other parochial things.”
Is the military considering working with the wanted persons for another round of negotiation with the insurgents? The military spokesman responded saying
“Like I said, any available information that could help in this operations we will definitely make use of it. So it is not a matter of saying we are giving them a mediating role or not.
“Whatever it is to ensure that we get our operations on track without further delay, to get more success in addition to the successes that we have achieved, I believe it is a welcome development. So we shouldn’t preempt what we are going to do and more so people have to be patient.  Nigerians have to be patient because we are not in anyway doing anything to impede us. However, we will do things to ensure that we maintain and carry out our duties without jeopardizing the security and national interest of this country and that is what we are doing.
And this is what is being done all over the world. One of the presidents of the developed countries was jailed because he gave a very good information about military activities. We are not going to do that, but however we are going to as much as possible get relevant information that would enhance our operations and I believe when we do that it will be in the overall interest of everybody”.