The Lamentation Of Mama Shekau!

By SOC Okenwa…

Abubakar Shekau is one of the most wanted international terrorists in the world. He remains a fugitive wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Nigeria and elsewhere beyond our shores. He is a bloody murderer, rapist, arsonist and abductor. Shekau has proven times without number that he could be the proverbial cat with nine lives! Rumoured to have been captured or killed many times he has remained conveniently at large allegedly wearing hijab as a ‘woman’ according to the Nigerian military high command. While living dangerously he continues to evade arrest or capture by changing places of residence at record speed. He operates like a ‘ghost’ but sometimes he makes himself heard loud and clear online by mocking the federal government or reiterating his disdain for Western education and likeness of sharia.

Though Boko Haram (BH) has since experienced a split in its camp with two rival groups working at cross-purposes the rupture in its leadership and followership has not affected seriously its capacity for nuisance. Even with the emergence of a rival group Shekau has maintained the command of his troops deploying same for blood-curdling adventures — including suicide bombings and mass abduction of vulnerable school girls. The terror exploits of Shekau has made him a loathsome (yet popular) figure known worldwide for his capacity to inflict horror on a hapless population — sometimes inside sacred places like churches and mosques!

Abubakar Shekau’s biological mother, Falmata Abubakar, spoke recently to a foreign media over the bloody activities of her son. In an interview she granted to the Voice of America (Hausa service) the old woman had said that since her son met with the late Mohammed Yusuf, founder of the violent sect, he has stayed away from her! She had these to say: “I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. I don’t know. It’s only God who knows. For 15 years I haven’t seen him…Yes, he’s my son and every mother loves her son, but we have different characters…He brought a lot of problem to many people. Where can I meet him to tell him that these things he is doing is very bad?….He brought many problems to many people, but I am praying for God to show him the good way….He just took his own character and went away….This is not the character I gave him. I don’t know what this type of behavior is. It’s only God who knows”.

Reading the interview dispassionately one could say that Hajiya Falmata’s mea culpa on behalf of her deranged son was understandable. She may have given birth to a Frankenstein monster but she regretted failing in her parental or maternal responsibility of training Shekau to become a good son. Inculcating good morals on Shekau as every good mother would could have made the difference in his life but the social situation up north could be blamed more. If Falmata had known that her son would be associated with societal abomination of murdering the innocent (for which he stands condemned today) in an inordinate quest for political power by the installation of a sharia regime up north and by rejection of the Western education as a ‘haram’ may be she would have aborted the pregnancy and saved humanity from the menace which the BH has constituted.

It is always the joy of evey mother to give birth to a hero or a star, a son or daughter whose exploits in whatever endeavour in life could be known, celebrated and remembered around the world. If an Eve were to be the mother of a Dangote, Soyinka, P-Square or Mikel Obi for example she would be feeling on top of the world for having delivered a wonder kid to the world. But in the case of Abubakar Shekau his mother must be feeling that she must have given birth to an animal, a cattle in human form that sees the world from a primitive prism far from the way we see same.

Read Also: Crime, SARS and the pains of that bullet

But in the case of Falmata and Shekau it is a sordid case of a son abandoned early enough to his fate. Mother and son had no intimacy at all leading to the wayward son forgetting that his poor mother existed somewhere in Shekau village! How would Shekau ever remember that a woman gave him life when he is constantly denying mothers the bliss of living with their daughters in colleges his gang had invaded at wee hours of the night, kidnapping them in their hundreds? How would the chief terrorist ever remember that she sucked the sagged breasts of the old woman when he raped and tortured young kidnapped girls in his custody? How could he have ever known that Falmata existed when he sold some girls into sexual slavery or used them as bargaining chips for money or release of detained comrades in custody?

Life is full of risks and adventures, some positive others the exact opposite. But what Shekau has been doing for years represented a dark reminder of parenthood bastardized and a ‘prodigal’ son dutifully electing to serve demons. Shekau is beyond redemption or repentance for now! He has passed the crucial stage where deliverance from any religious quarters could be considered an option. Hajiya Abubakar should consider her dear son lost forever! Shekau she knew as a child has since transformed himself into something else!

Mama Shekau, in the interview, raised two serious systemic issues that daily affect the entire northern region in Nigeria. One is the quoranic school system where abandoned street urchins often go to for formal Islamic or Arabic education. And the other is the ‘almajiri’ or ‘talakawa’ phenomenon or syndrome. How could a nation ever hope of development in an atmosphere of an illiterate youthful population? When politicians and the elite up north are not using these undesirable young elements to foster their political ambitions the ‘talakawas’ themselves ‘graduate’ later in their adult lives to become a security threat to the society at large.

Abubakar Shekau was an almajiri before he met the late BH founder, Yusuf, in Maiduguri. In the generations-old tradition, almajiris are sent off by their parents to study the Quran in schools locally known as “tsangaya”, where a teacher coaches the dozens, sometimes hundreds of male students, to memorize the entire Quran. They finish from the schools to become responsible for their future. Many among them suffer from woeful ignorance of the law and what civilization is all about!

When Olusegun Obasanjo was ‘Babacratically’ in power years ago as President the sharia law impositions in some northern states (orchestrated by the serving Governors then) had served as a divisive measure aimed at weakening a southern President. The pro-sharia declarations were not only provocative but a sure way of playing politics with religious sentiments. Today with a nepotic Muslim in Aso Rock Fulani herdsmen (bearing AK47 assault rifles) have joined the BH terrorists to add to the security challenges of our country.

While Shekau lives dangerously with millions of Dollars bounty dangling over his head the fact that Osama Bin Laden could be brutally eliminated in far-away Pakistan (after more than ten years of living in isolation post-9/11) by the invading American special forces meant that Shekau could hide for as long as possible but one good day he would face the music played the devil!

When Hajiya Falmata insinuated in the interview that she did not know where to meet or see her son to be able to make him know how she felt about his Islamic madness we say that would not be a big problem. Shekau, no matter his modest informal education, must be conversant with the digital revolution of our generation. Daily or weekly he uses the Internet to post videos and audio messages. His propaganda machinery remains well-oiled online. Therefore, his mother’s message would one way or the other reach him whether he is perambulating in Sambissa Forest dressed up as a woman or prowling the no man’s lands across the borders of Nigeria with Niger, Chad with Cameroun.

Mama Shekau’s lamentations could be considered for what they are worth (for all intents and purposes) as medication after death! While her views elicited motherly concern — they were emotional enough— but they could hardly soothe the pains thousands have/had gone through in the hands of the BH gang. The thousands of those cruelly murdered could no longer be brought back to life! The uncountable wounded could not be made whole again. Nor could the displaced in their millions be compansated or consoled enough.

Shekau has done a lot of damage to the lives of millions of Nigerians that his mother in her analphabetic world could not easily comprehend. But her compassionate message to the victims scattered across the lenght and breadth of this great nation could go a long way in atoning for the numerous heinous sins and crimes of Abubakar Shekau.

 

RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears

Click here to join the Ripples Nigeria WhatsApp group for latest updates.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now