Time to Expose the Coward Known as Zagazola Makama

By Masara Kim

Zagazola Makama has continued to expose his shameful corruption and lies while pretending to be a security expert by rehashing the false “farmer-herder” narrative that he and his terrorist sponsors have created and pushed for years. But his biggest mistake, from the start of his embarrassing narrative war, was coming after Masara Kim.

In his rebuttal to my strong counter to his shameful lies and attempts to take advantage of my recent misunderstandings with officials and some community members in Plateau State, Makama claimed he has stood with people of all tribes without bias—another lie that is evidently refuted by his very own reporting and statements on terror attacks in Plateau State, which are readily available on his personal website and social media handles.

Makama thought he had found a weak point following my video of a commissioner speaking at a mass funeral, which both the commissioner and his supporters acknowledged and merely condemned as coming at the wrong time and having a caption that suggested a personal attack on the commissioner, without denying its authenticity or the remarks made in the video. But his series of statements, rehashing the same weak arguments, shows how incompetent he is to identify as an analyst, much less a security expert whose role is rooted in evidence and verification.

How does a so-called security expert claiming knowledge of Plateau State and every security event not know that Governor Mutfwang was neither at the February 25th mass funeral at Dorowa Babuje, nor has he in any way publicly commented on the video? Does he even think Plateau officials are that jobless as to dwell so much on such trivialities, even in the face of irrefutable evidence? Why has Masara Kim not been arrested or sued if the said video was fake, like his fabricated clips of Boko Haram and ISIS suspects? Does he think Masara Kim is a coward like him, hiding behind a pseudonym to claim titles not deserved for personal gain?

For your information, Mr. Security Expert, I worked with Governor Caleb Mutfwang on a high-powered committee before he became governor, and he knows me by name and address. In his government, I have former classmates, work colleagues, and friends who check on me regularly. Do you think you can ever love them more than I do? Another thing you must know is that I know who you are, but you don’t know anything about me. And this is where you made a mistake.

WHO IS ZAGAZOLA MAKAMA?

His real name is Hamza Suleiman aka Hamza Dan Zaria. He hails from Zaria, Kaduna State and he is a staff member of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), posted to Borno as a junior reporter over six years ago. Since then, he has allegedly lobbied and manipulated his management to retain him in Maiduguri, exempting him from routine reshuffling because of the financial benefits and protection he gets from the military in Borno. His continued stay in Borno is also essential to continue perpetrating his fraud and lies pretending to be a security expert.
Is he a security expert? The answer is no. He allegedly only got himself attached to the late Army Chief Attahiru as his resident civilian reporter and axe man for countering what they perceived as negative reports from decent and fearless reporters like me, who will always challenge their actions and decisions. “Security expert” is not a title one can just pick up along the road or buy from a store. It is earned through long, hard study and research in relevant disciplines, sometimes up to the level of a PhD. Somebody like Hamza, with a first degree in Mass Communication from ABU Zaria and just about a decade in media practice, cannot legitimately claim to be a security expert. I have been reporting wars for over 17 years, including in the same Borno State where he lives. I have crawled under flying bullets along the Maiduguri-Damboa road and done extensive personal reporting in Chibok, Gwoza, and other places long before he obtained his first degree. But that has never brought me close to claiming to be a security expert, and I never will, because I am not.
His origin is Zaria, and he has latent extremist tendencies that you may not observe until you get close to him, based on testimonies from close associates and colleagues who have served with him for years. So, as an extremist that he is, one is not surprised at his double standards: calling Boko Haram and IS fighters who behead defenceless civilians, including women and children, in the name of Allah terrorists, but explaining away the same atrocities in the Middle Belt by terrorists identifying as Fulani as mere clashes between sedentary farmers and semi-nomadic cattle herders. Hence his ridiculous allegations of manipulating information “in ways that deepen division rather than encourage understanding.” You cannot say that and make sense in the face of mounting evidence of mass atrocities and forceful demographic replacement in a place like Plateau, where over 200 native communities have been seized and occupied by terrorists who attacked and slaughtered them.

Yet these are the people Hamza Dan Zaria is defending and advocating understanding with. Does “understanding” mean that the original landowners and victims of their unprovoked mass invasions and massacres should negotiate with their killers or surrender their lands instead of seeking justice?
Hamza Dan Zaria forgets that he visits Jos regularly. In recent years, he has sat all his promotion examinations at the News Agency of Nigeria Jos office. Yet he still does not see reason to investigate and identify the truth about the ongoing violence in rural communities and stand for the right cause. Instead, his stock-in-trade has remained the defence of the Nigerian military, even in the face of obvious failures during emergencies; the twisting of narratives to shield perpetrators from justice; and the defence of terrorists accused of mass murder, as well as the labeling of civilian guards—including those merely standing in front of their homes with slingshots and sticks—as tribal militias.

The question remains: is he suddenly siding with these same people he has consistently labeled, including in his weak rebuttal to my last statement on his lies, as “Berom militias”?