How we killed Albani – Suspects

Two of seven Boko Haram suspects paraded to the media in Abuja by the Department of State Security (SSS) yesterday recounted their involvement in the assassination of Zaria-based cleric Sheikh Muhammad Auwal Albani, saying they committed the act on directive from their sect’s highest ruling body.

Albani, his wife and son were gunned down on February 1, 2014, at Gwargwaje area of Zaria, Kaduna state, while driving home from a preaching session in the city reportedly for threatening to expose the sect’s members to security agencies.

The sect members paraded yesterday included Yakub Abdullahi (a.k.a. Alhaji Bala or Alhajin Kano Yakub Bulunkutu), Ibrahim Shu’aibu (a.k.a. Kawal Abu Amar), Bilyamin Usman, Sahabi Isma’il, Umar Farouk, Yasir Salihu and Musa Abubakar.
While fielding questions from journalists, Salihu, 35, confessed to being a member of the militant sect and confessed to taking part in the surveillance on Albani before he was murdered.

The ABU graduate of English Literature, who works as the Head of Records and Billing department, Horizons Medical Centre, Wuse Zone 6, Abuja, said he joined the sect in 2009 when he attended a sermon by the Boko Haram leader, the late Mohammed Yusuf, in Maiduguri.

He said: “I can say I am a member of the group. I became a member in 2009 when Mohammed Yusuf came to preach in Zaria and I was impressed by what he said. He preached on some topics that in various subjects like biology, geography which are against God, like the theory of evolution that are against the existence of God.”

Usman, 22, who admitted to emptying 30 rounds of ammunition into Albani and his wife, while on a motorcycle, added that he was trained on how to shoot by one Yusuf Abubakar, who is now deceased, in a room in Kano.
SSS Deputy Director, Media and Public Relations, Ms Marilyn Ogar, while parading the suspects before journalists at the SSS headquarters in Abuja, explained that Albani was killed for his pro-western posture and his preaching which were contrary to the Boko Haram ideology.

According to her, the hatred for Albani
culminated in a meeting by members of the sect under the leadership of Abdullahi at Hayin Danmani in Rigasa area of Kaduna town, where Boko Haram’s decision-making organ, the Shura Council, ordered the killing of the Islamic cleric.
She revealed that the sect members had attempted to kill Albani on January 23, 2014, but the plot failed as he was said to have travelled, hence he was placed on surveillance and was tracked to the Markaz Salafiyya Centre by the Boko Haram members and killed on February 1.

The spokesperson explained that the sect members had waited for the scholar till the end of his sermon, trailed and eventually killed him and two members of his family, while other occupants of the vehicle sustained varying degrees of injury.
Ogar said: “Investigation and confessions by the suspects revealed that Albani’s pro-western posture and his preaching are contrary to the Boko Haram ideology; it was this hatred that culminated in a meeting by members of the sect under the leadership of Yakub Abdullahi at Danmani in Rigasa area of Kaduna, where Abdullahi declared that the Shura Council (the highest decision-making body), had ordered the killing of Albani.”

The SSS deputy director further disclosed that Abdullahi, 42, was the Kaduna/Niger states sub-regional commander of the sect, adding that he was actively involved in the 2009 insurrection in Maiduguri, Borno state.
She said he later fled to Kouseri town in Cameroun, from where he relocated to Kano to organise fleeing members of the sect and coordinated robbery attacks by the sect members.

She added that he was the arrowhead of Albani’s killing, as he not only directed the assassination plot, but also procured the two AK47 rifles used in the operation.
Investigations, Ogar said, were ongoing to apprehend other sect members operating in the Kaduna/Niger axis as well as ascertain the source of their weapons.
She said the suspects in custody would soon be charged to court.