The Unending Search For Sponsors Of Boko Haram

 The recent jailing of Nigerians in United Arab Emirate (UAE) for sponsoring Boko Haram has brought to the fore the ending search for the sponsors of Boko Haram. Nigeria has been fighting terrorism war against Boko Haram for over 10 years without identifying the sponsors. According to many terrorism experts killing the foot soldiers of Boko Haram without identifying their sponsors is like cutting the leaves and branches of a tree without uprooting the trunk along with its tap roots. 

It also appears that identifying the sponsors of Boko Haram is not top on the strategy of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, what with its policy of deradicalization and reintegration of so-called repentant Boko Haram terrorists. However if the government is doing something to unravel the sponsors of it has not made it public. 

The last attempt at unraveling the sponsors of Boko Haram was during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014. At the time it was not that the government went in search of sponsors of Boko Haram, rather what happened was that the government hired an Australian negotiator Stephen Davis to negotiate the release of the Chibok Girls that was abducted from their school in Borno State by the Boko Haram terrorists. In the course of negotiating with the terrorists, Davis controversially claimed that the Boko Haram commanders revealed to him their sponsors. But it was obvious that they played on the naivety of Stephen Davis when the Australian claimed that the terrorists told him that their main sponsors are former governor of Borno State Ali Modu Sheriff who had all his political life been with the ANPP and recently defected to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika. 

In fact the aforementioned sponsor were actually people that Boko Haram wished they were dead because they dealt ruthlessly with Boko Haram and whatever they represent. While Ali Modu Sheriff may have courted the late leader of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf because of his large following but don’t forget that they parted ways when Sheriff failed to declare Borno a Sharia State like was fashionable in most northern states of the country. Several members of Ali Modu Sheriff’s family including his brother was killed by Boko Haram. At the time of the report by Davis, Sheriff was literarily on the run from the terrorists, therefore how the former governor would be on the run from terrorists and remains their major sponsor stands logic on its head. 

That General Ihejirika was a sponsor of Boko Haram was even the most laughable and ridiculous. The former Chief of Army when he was in charge dealt ruthlessly with the terrorists to the level that even the Borno Elders and Northern Elders accused him of committing extra-judicial killing against the Boko Haram members and threatened to file charges against at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. The Northern Elders Forum (NEF), has threatened to drag the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika, and some other top military officers to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for alleged extra-judicial killings. This happened sometimes in 2014, barely 48 hours after President Goodluck Jonathan had removed the nation’s service chiefs (including Ihejirika) from office, the Northern Elders in a communique signed by its spokesman, Professor Ango Abdullahi, at the end of its meeting in Kaduna, accused the then outgoing Chief of Army Staff and six others of alleged extra-judicial killings by soldiers in Bama and Giwa Barracks in Borno State, using an underground detention centre. While the statement did not mention the six other persons involved, Abdullahi said that the forum had earlier set up two investigative committees to probe the use of soldiers against civilians in Bama and some parts of Borno State. 

“The Forum has therefore resolved to harmonise the reports of the two committees, preparatory to filing a case of extra-judicial killings by the Nigerian Army under the then Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Azubuike Ihejirika and six others. “The reports will be harmonised at our emergency meeting in Abuja on Wednesday the 22nd of January 2014, for further action”, the statement read. It is illogical that a man killing terrorists was also their sponsor. This illogic on sponsors of Boko Haram discredited whatever good Stephen Davis came to Nigeria to do. This brings us to the identification of sponsors of Boko Haram by the authorities of UAE. 

Recall that an Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has upheld the imprisonment imposed on six Nigerian citizens found guilty of funding the Boko Haram terrorist group operating in the North East of Nigeria. The six Nigerians who bagged various jail terms were found guilty of facilitating a huge sum of $782,000 into the possession of Boko Haram insurgents, who have been terrorizing Nigeria for more than a decade. According to the report, two of the convicts, Surajo Muhammad and Saleh Adamu are to spend the rest part of their lives in the UAE prison while the others; Ibrahim Alhassan, AbdurRahman Musa, Bashir Yusuf and Muhammad Isa will each spend 10 years. The six Nigerians were said to have been convicted and sentenced to jail last year, while there appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal was unsuccessful. 

The verdict of the Court indicated that between 2015 and 2016, the six Nigerians channeled cash flow in United States dollars into bank accounts in favour of some Boko Haram insurgents. The arraignment and subsequent conviction as well as sentencing of the defendants by courts in the United Arab Emirates, to some extent has put names and faces to sponsors of insurgents in the North East of Nigeria, which for over 10 years have remained a mystery.