Ihejirika not Boko Haram sponsor – DSS
Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen Azubuike-Ihejirika
The Department of State Security has risen in defence of the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd), saying it’s uncharitable and wicked for anyone to associate him with sponsorship of the Boko Haram insurgency.
The Spokesperson of the DSS, Ms. Marilyn Ogar, who addressed journalists at the Service’s headquarters in Abuja on Friday, also said the former Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, has been invited for questioning.
An Australian hostage negotiator, Dr. Stephen Davis, had, in a cable media interview last week, fingered Ihejirika and Sheriff as some of the major sponsors of Boko Haram.
Davis was hired by President Goodluck Jonathan to help negotiate the release of the over 200 Chibok school girls abducted by Boko Haram in April 14. The girls are still in the sect’s captivity.
Ms. Ogar said: “I want to say here that it is absolutely uncharitable for us as Nigerians to reward like that somebody who laid down his life in pursuing the same people.
“For us to accept that he is associated with the same sect whose activities he, together with this Service, succeeded in bringing to a halt in Kano, Okene and other places, pursuing them down to the Sambisa Forest.
“And to accept that the same man was sponsoring Boko Haram is wicked and uncharitable. We should not allow people to use our liberal nature to perpetrate all sort of evils in our society.”
On ex -Governor Sheriff, Ogar said: “He had been invited here twice in the past. The Service has invited him again. There is nothing that this service has done in investigation in the past that we have not informed the public.”
SOURCE: thenationonlineng
