Publisher handling negotiations between kidnappers and Nigerian government arrested in Egypt

EGYPTIAN police have arrested Alhaji Tukur Mamu the lead negotiator mediating between the terrorists who kidnapped passengers on the Abuja to Kaduna train in March and the Nigerian government.

On March 28, the train was attacked in Katari, Kaduna State, with about eight people killed on the spot and 65 people abducted. Since then, the terrorists who carried out the attack have been negotiating with the government and have released a few of their victims in exchange for their colleagues being detained.

Alhaji Mamu, who has been at the centre of these negotiations, was arrested in Cairo, the Egyptian capital yesterday along with his family members while on his way to Saudi Arabia to perform the lesser hajj pilgrimage. According to the management of Desert Herald Newspaper, the arrest of Alhaji Mamu, their publisher was an attempt to intimidate him.

Ibrahim Mada, the publishing house's head of special projects, accused the federal government of contriving to arrest and deport Alhaji Mamu from Egypt to Nigeria. He added: “His patriotic mission to ensure the safety of the hapless passengers made him a target of blackmail by unscrupulous elements in the government who are hell bent in punishing him for this noble but dangerous sacrifice for the fatherland.

"Such threats and intimidations have forced him to reveal on a number of times that his life was under serious threat. Due to numerous threats to his life and conspiracy from the side of security agents to frame him, he withdrew from the said negotiations but from his latest sojourn, it appears that those who are desperately praying for his head are still hell-bent in carrying out their odious dastardly plans.

“However,  it is our fervent hope that the evil machination of these desperate elements will be nixed by the fact that Allah is always by the side of the oppressed. This evil machination like the ones before it, shall also come to pass.”