Terrorism is Blood Money

Nigerians have always suspected that Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terrorist groups which have been devastating the country for years are well-heeled.

This suspicion was recently confirmed by a chilling report which established that one of the terror groups moved about N18b ($36m) through the Nigerian financial system in the last year.

According to its 2021 Mutual Evaluation Report, the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa, also known as GIABA which was established by the Economic Authority of Heads of State and Government in 2000, Boko Haram splinter group, Islamic State West Africa Province, moved about N18bn ($36m) generated from trading and taxing communities in the Lake Chad region, through the Nigerian financial system.

It is little wonder.

For more than a decade now, terrorism has taken a firm foothold in Nigeria, leaving its bold, bloody footprints across many states especially in northern Nigeria. Hitherto sprawling communities have been sacked and then razed; thousands have been slaughtered; markets, farms and other such places where people`s livelihoods thrive have been reduced to dust; schools have been bombed and students abducted in just a few instances of how forceful the terrorists have been.

The swell in Nigeria`s IDP camps and the casualties occasioned to Nigeria` security personnel bear testimony to the sheer potency of terror. In the face of this existential threat to Nigeria`s sovereignty and unity, what has the government done?

Opinions are sharply divided. While the government prays for patience and cooperation, pleading that it is doing its best and citing countries which have been battling terrorism for years to demonstrate its enduring challenge, many Nigerians think the government is big on noise but small on music.

For those Nigerians, because there is sympathy in the highest places for some of those complicit in terrorist activities against Nigerians, there has been no incentive to crush them. Of course, many Nigerians remember how allegations swirled not long ago of how billions earmarked for the battle against insurgency ended up in private pockets. That scandalous chapter is yet to close.

As Boko Haram and ISWAP have sought to take over states in Northern Nigeria, they have faced a formidable force in Nigeria`s security forces, especially the Nigerian Army.

Many terrorists have been killed, their weapons recovered and their terror networks dismantled. Many of them have been cowed into surrendering to the Nigerian state even if their rehabilitation and deradicalization at the instance of the Nigerian Army continues to be a lightning rod for controversy.

However, Nigeria`s forceful response to terror pushed by the gallant men of the Nigerian Army has not come without steep prices. Gallant officers have been caught down in their prime, sophisticated military equipment have fallen into the hands of the terrorists and many security operations have been compromised by sabotage.

All through the war against Nigeria`s mortal enemies, it has always appeared that the terrorists are well-funded.

This has now been confirmed by the humongous amount cited in the report. Most of the fund is said to have come from trading activities by the terrorists and taxation in the Lake Chad region. But Nigerians know that there is more to it than meets the eyes.

Many Nigerians know that were terrorism not well sponsored and coordinated in Nigeria, it would have been long defeated. Nigerians also know that because the crude terrorists are at best crude traders and clumsy tax collectors, they rely heavily on their shadowy collaborators to raise the money they need to fund the deaths of thousands.

Nigerians want to know their collaborators.

Nigerians want to know those who contribute to the finances of terrorists in Nigeria; Nigerians want to know those who by their iniquitous contributions and donations make heavy the war chest of the savages who shed innocent Nigerian blood; Nigerians want to know those who pay their killers.

If there is a list of those who sponsor terrorism in Nigeria – and it appears there is – no matter the layers of dust it has gathered, Nigerians want to see it.

It breaks the heart in a country where millions of children cry themselves to sleep every night out of hunger that billions of naira can seamlessly skirt the impotent hurdles of Nigeria`s financial system and state surveillance to sponsor the annihilation of entire communities.

Nigeria`s security agencies empowered by law to check money laundering and terrorist financing must fully understand that terrorism is Nigeria`s most dangerous enemy.

Thus, while it is necessary to confront the criminals within, extra efforts must be made to neuter the terrorists and their local as well as foreign financiers.

Until terrorism is starved of the funds which oil its odious operations, Nigeria will continue to fight a losing battle against terrorism.

Kene Obiezu,

keneobiezu@gmail.com