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PEOPLE AND POLITIC BY MOHAMMED HARUNA Still On the Jos Christmas Eve bombings
Regular readers of my syndicated column who subscribe to both Daily Trust and The Nation must’ve noticed the difference between the columns on the back page of last Wednesday’s editions of the two newspapers. Whereas Daily Trust’s was entitled “Court of Appeal under siege”, The Nation’s was a reproduction of my article of December 29 on the Christmas Eve co-ordinated bombings in Jos which killed and maimed scores of people. The difference between the articles in the two newspapers calls for an explanation especially as a few readers said the repetition was gratuitous and believed it was my decision. Thanks to improvements in internet connectivity in the country which has made it possible to send documents across the world at the stroke of a personal computer keyboard from the comfort of one’s office or even bedroom, I have often emailed my column in “real time,” to adapt an internet lingo for meeting a deadline just in time. Penultimate Tuesday night my Etisalat internet connection failed me. Nearly an hour after I finished writing the week’s column I could not email it to the two newspapers as well as to Gamji.com and Newsdiaryonline.com, the two websites that carry the column same day. By now it was a little after 11 p.m. In desperation I called Gbenga Omotosho, the editor of The Nation, and told him about my problem which meant he’ll have to run another article in place of my column. He sounded unhappy but said they could still wait a bit more. I then suggested that since luckily I happened to be in Abuja, I could dash down to Trust’s headquarters at Otako and send the article from there. He agreed. With no traffic on the road and driving like the devil was on my tail, I got to Trust in next to no time from the outskirts of the city where I squat whenever I am there. The Trust production chaps quickly downloaded the column from my flashdrive to layout on the back page. I then gave them the addresses of the remaining three subscribers of the column to mail to. Thereafter I called Gbenga to confirm if they’d received it. There was no answer. I then called Kemi, presumably the sub-editor in charge of the back page, from the way she often called to confirm if I was writing for the week any Tuesday I seemed to be running late in sending my column. Again there was no answer. I took their silence to mean everything was ok. You can then imagine my surprise the following morning when my Glow number on the back page of The Nation for readers’ reactions – Trust hasn’t any - started receiving texts that had no bearing on the topic of the day. Naturally I called the editor to find out what happened. He said he too was surprised but that the production chaps had called him after he’d closed shop for the day to say they could not download the document. He’ll, he said, find out the details as soon as he got to the office later in the day and revert to me. When I called him again much later the details still came down to the inability of the production chaps to download the documents. Well, any disappointment could have its blessings. This one has provided me an opportunity to publish an exchange triggered by the Jos bombing article between two readers - one of whom, Dr. Ismail Iro, is the proprietor Of Gamji.com - who are knowledgeable about the internet, an exchange which, I believe, could shed some light on the authenticity of the alleged claim by Boko Haram of responsibility for the bombings. The reader may recall that I did cast doubt on the veracity of the claim and hinted that some rogue elements in the Jonathan administration bent on using religion to divide the North may as well have been responsible. One of my reasons was that the so-called Boko Haram website seemed to have been created after the bombings and disappeared as soon as its use was apparently over. I have decided to use the opportunity provided by The Nation’s inadvertent (?) reproduction of my December 29 article to publish the exchange between the two internet experts, in the hope that it’ll shed some light on the terrible politics of the seemingly ethno-religious violence on the Plateau. (I’ve had to reduce the length Dr. Iro’s submission for space.) The exchange follows:
Salam,
Technical Contact:
Dr. Ismaila Iro Assalamu alaikum. I refer to your last mail in which you brought my attention to Dr. Iro's observation. I accept the correction. I was wrong to state that the website was created that morning. I have found out that the information I relied upon to arrive at that conclusion was not reliable.
However, the central argument I made is still valid: which is that the website and the information contained therein were not conclusive proof of the culpability of the group.
In addition, it is significant to observe that the website itself was closed some hours after I sent you that email.
But, before the website was closed, I, too, was able to interrogate the WHOIS database for relevant information on the website. I have attached a copy of their original response as sent by the WHOIS database group. Even though the information I requested from WHOIS database is not as comprehensive as Dr. Iro's, the answer I got are similar to his own and raise further disturbing and unanswered questions. For example: Does Aliyu Dahiru exist? Is there a location in Kano with that address? Is there such a telephone number as indicated in both Dr. Iro and my factsheet? And, many more.
To answer these questions, I went to Kano and tried to locate the address indicated in the factsheet. Unfortunately, I could not locate House No. 1234 Dankura Street, Gandun Albasa, Off Zoo Road. Indeed, the pattern of numbering or numbering scheme adopted in Gandun Albasa is nowhere near the address indicated in the factsheet.
Secondly, the telephone number itself is not valid. Check it out. It is: +1.2348028539. As you know, +1 is the international call no for the US; 234 is the international call number for Nigeria; 802 is the call reference for a Nigerian mobile provider; 8539 are meaningless numbers as they do not represent the standard mobile phone number for any mobile or fixed network in Nigeria or even in the US. In Nigeria, there are 7 numerals and not 4.
So, we now have a non-existent residential or office address and an invalid telephone number. When you add these to the fact that the content of the website claiming responsibility for the Jos December 24th bomb blast was uploaded that morning and the fact that the group (Boko Haram) never used internet websites to claim responsibility in any of their pre or post Dec 24th bomb blast, then major doubts are raised to warrant the conclusion that some other forces are at work to pin responsibility on a particular group. The danger here is not only that some other group may be targeted for revenge, but also that security agencies may be misled as to the real culprit.
2.Presence on Facebook and linkage. The process of generating presence on the Facebook is simple. Facebook requires you to only possess a valid email address. You can have as many email addresses as you may wish in any of the platforms of email providers and it is free. While creating your email address, you can hide your real identity and assume a fake identity. If a person used a non-existent address and an invalid telephone number to create a website address, there is a strong possibility for such a person to also hide his real identity to create an account on Facebook.
Facebook is merely a commercial website whose primary goal is to have as many subscribers as possible in order to boost their advert and other revenues. Because of this, they are lax, even negligent, in their registration protocols. So, the 'linkage' of a possibly non-existent Aliyu Dahiru on Facebook to the creator of the monsoorah.net website as an indication of the existence of Aliyu Dahiru and hence the culpability of the group that was alleged to have claimed responsibility is a little far-fetched.
We should however keep our fingers crossed and await more information on this issue because I think we have not heard the last on this issue.
Samaila Abdullahi Mohammed Salam, I agree entirely with the submission and analysis of your friend on the issue of Mansoorah.net. Even more, I appreciate his going the extra length of getting first hand information and location of the purported website registrar. An additional puzzle for me is the name "mansoorah" . It sounds alien to us in the north. I googled it and could only find a link with Egypt and some Islamic websites in the Middle East. I think there are more questions raised. Ismail Iro
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