Kehinde Aina. Remember him? He is the young man who was pursued out of Jos, the Plateau State capital, by Boko Haram to Lagos before running out to Ghana. He now lives several miles away in Sweden but the dreaded Islamic sect says there is no reprieve for him as yet.
According to the group, Kehinde, the son of a pastor, was paid by government to spy out their activities. Boko Haram means: “Western Education is forbidden.”
Kehinde Aina is not only educated, he was believed to be educating some of the Muslim boys against their doctrine, thus committing “Haram.”
His father, Pastor Abiola Aina of Church of Christ Headquarters in Jos, was also converting people from Islam and Kehinde, along with his other brothers, Adedayo and Adebayo, were feeding the Federal Government and its security agencies with the activities of the sect.
So Kehinde must die since Fatwa has been proclaimed on his head. But he managed to flee, first to Lagos, where he was traced to, then to Ghana before journeying to Sweden where he sought asylum.
If he managed to escape, his family members were not as lucky. In March 2012, Pastor Aina’s church was bombed and he, Kehinde’s father, was gruesomely murdered. The Boko Haram sect claimed responsibility for it. Luck also ran out of Kehinde’s mother and two brothers, who were kidnapped, taken to a hideout where they were subjected to cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment before their lucky escape.
Ever since then, Kehinde Aina, who has lost all his property in Jos and Lagos to incessant attacks by the dreaded sect, has not been able to return to his loved ones in Nigeria. And, according to our source, Sweden is not a comfortable home for him either, as he is being allegedly hounded by Government agents to return home.
Kehinde did not witness the burial of his dad. He only heard that his mum and brothers are out of the kidnapper’s den, but they are still in hiding and sparingly communicate with him.
Yet the Fatwa of the Boko Haram, whose connections with the men of Nigerian Army and other security agencies are not hidden, subsists.
This is one of the challenges confronting the new government of President Muhammadu Buhari as it attempts to rid the country of terrorist attacks. Will the retired general look on while Jos and other Northern cities remain under the Boko Haram siege and the likes of Kehinde Aina suffer banishment from their fatherland?
