Boko Haram along with 16 others in exchange for a ransom of $3.15 million. As well as extortion from local residents, Boko Haram has claimed to extort money from local state governments. A spokesman of Boko Haram claimed that Kano state governor Ibrahim Shekarau and Bauchi state governor Isa Yuguda had paid them monthly. It has long been alleged that Boko Haram had a relationship with al-Qaeda. In 2011, letters from Boko Haram were reportedly found in bin Laden's compound. Three weeks after the 2009 Boko Haram uprising began, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb expressed sympathy for Boko Haram. Speaking by phone
A Word to the People but were heckled and had difficulty in making themselves heard. Ten years after the publication, on 14 August 2001, "Sovetskaya Rossiya" published an appeal entitled "Stop reforms of death!" («Остановить „реформы смерти“!»), in which the letter "A Word to the People" was called "prophesying". A Word to the People "A Word to the People" (Russian: «Слово к народу») was an open letter signed by twelve Soviet public figures. The declaration was published in "Sovetskaya Rossiya" (a newspaper that expressed anti-perestroika views) on 23 July 1991. The signers included writers Yuri Bondarev, Valentin Rasputin and Alexander Prokhanov, singer Lyudmila Zykina, war