Cameroon Serving As Hideout For Nigeria’s Boko Haram – Cleric

Cameroon Serving As Hideout For Nigeria’s Boko Haram – Cleric

Ntaryike Divine Jr

Douala, Cameroon

14 August 2011

Cameroon no longer serves merely as a refuge for members of Nigeria’s

radical Boko Haram Islamic sect, but has become a base for enrolling

converts, a Muslim cleric in the C. African nation has warned.

“I make this claim based on clear indicators.  The administration has

been served several indices which have confirmed that these people are

in Cameroon and are even propagating their doctrine in various chapels

and mosques.  There are other indicators like CDs which carry their

ideology and are being distributed across the national territory,”

Sheik Ibrahim Mbombo Mubarak told AP in an exclusive interview in

Cameroon’s largest city, Douala.

                                  

Boko Haram is a term coined from Hausa to denote radical opposition to

Western education.  The extremist religious group has been accused of,

or claimed responsibility for a spate of savage assaults in recent

years in northeastern Nigeria.  Essentially, it has targeted and

killed Christians, police, politicians, local government officials as

well as blown up government institutions.

In July 2009, sectarian clashes pitting Boko Haram and Christians in

Nigeria’s Borno State which shares borders with Cameroon left over

eight hundred people dead within days.  The Nigerian police and army

launched an offensive that culminated in the killing of the group

leader, Mohammed Yusuf alongside several high profile aides.

The crackdown triggered the escape of some of the group members to

neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Sheik Mubarak says initially, the fugitives sought refuge in

Cameroon’s predominantly Muslim northern regions which share porous

borders with Nigeria.  But steadily, they have been infiltrating

Muslim communities elsewhere across the country where they are lodged

naively or knowingly by some extremist Cameroonian Muslim leaders who

even allow them preach in their mosques.

“The No. 2 and No. 3 strongmen of the sect [Mohammad Nour and Mohammed

Kahirou] are from Cameroon and precisely, are people who actually grew

up in Douala.  So they came back when they were chased from Nigeria

and have been spreading their recordings and ideology.  Cameroon is a

favorable ground for the Boko Haram sect because there’s a sort of

laxity regarding freedom of worship.  Religions are practiced without

any authorization and that’s how these extremist movements are gaining

grounds in Cameroon,” he noted.

The Conference of Imams of Cameroon says it has alerted the government

of the potential menace to public order posed by the swelling presence

of Boko Haram members in the country.  Ostensibly, no formal action

has been taken.  Sheik Mubarak says the sect members quickly leave

town or lie low whenever their cover is blown, only to reemerge

elsewhere and continue spreading their dogma.

“You cannot wait to see a thief in thief’s clothing before you act,

uniforms for thieves don’t exist.  So their ideology should be tracked

by those capable of detecting indicators.  After Al Zarawi took over

the command of al-Qaida, Boko Haram signed an agreement with AQMI

–al-Qaida’s armed branch in Africa for its agents to get military

training.  Boko Haram is not only a sect with ideological differences,

but has military and strategic training and is ready to act and for

that reason, we remain under threat,” he warns.

Several Nigerian newspaper reports have hinted that police

interrogations of captured Boko Haram members have revealed that the

group procures weapons [including rocket launchers and AK47s] from

unnamed sources in Cameroon and Chad.  Some of the reports also

indicate the group has been considering the possibility of using

Niger, Chad or Cameroon as a logistics base from where operations,

targeting its critics and government institutions in Nigeria can be

launched.

In June this year, the Shehu of Borno State accused aliens from Chad

and Cameroon of masterminding of Boko Haram attacks that left several

people dead.  A month later, 36 nationals including Chadians and

Cameroonians were identified among those killed in a gun battle

between police and suspected Boko Haram activists.  Earlier this

month, 43 Cameroonians, suspected of belonging to the group were

expelled.

Sheik Mubarak says with the growing offensive against the group in

Nigeria, it could simply change nomenclature and begin active

operations under another name in Cameroon.  “It’s a movement which

initially was created in Nigeria in 2000-2003 under a different name.

It was called the Committee of Islamic Youth and at the onset, it its

goal was to fight Christianity.  Then it metamorphosed into Boko

Haram.  That is ‘prohibition of Western education, administrative

institutions and all that is pro-West.’”

The prelate adds that with Cameroonian Muslims witnessing doctrinal

disputes and an increasingly moribund economy, recruiting Boko Haram

followers across the country, with over half of its 20 million

inhabitants toiling below the poverty line will be quite easy, as

obtained in Nigeria when the group was first hatched.