Prosecuting Terrorism Financiers by Odiawa Ai

After certain media houses leaked the identities of 15 entities, comprising nine individuals and six Bureau de Change (BDC) firms that have been sanctioned over alleged terrorism financing, the Bola Tinubu administration keeps on following the old path of the previous administrations. At first, media reports referenced just a single alleged financier on Tuesday. The bold and logical step is to mention, prosecute and punish the offenders.

As of now, the delivery is buried in contention as the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit is not forthcoming on the subtleties of the suspected financiers. As per news sources, top on the rundown of people is a Kaduna-based publisher, Tukur Mamu. Mamu is presently being tried by the Federal Government for supposedly supporting the terrorists who hijacked the Abuja-Kaduna train in March 2022.

Mamu allegedly “participated in the financing of terrorism by receiving and delivering ransom payments over the sum of $200,000 US in support of ISWAP terrorists for the release of hostages of the Abuja-Kaduna train attack.”

Aside from Mamu, the release covered up the names of the other alleged financiers. This is a tasteless way to deal with managing terrorism. It is not enough for the government to just name one of the individuals; it ought to give nitty gritty data on all the individuals and the firms for the public to be mindful in its dealings with them. The equivalent for financial institutions.

In the past 15 years, Nigerians have kept on experiencing brutal exercises of Islamic terrorists, herdsmen, and bandits. The exercises of these criminals have prompted an increase in food insecurity, and destruction of lives and properties, and the decline in foreign direct investment. Nigeria has additionally redirected scarce resources to its annual defence budgets to cope with the upsurge in violence in the North-East, North-West, and North-Central regions of the nation.

The Vice-President, Kashim Shettima, who was a two-term governor of Borno State, calculated that the insurgency has claimed 120,000 lives. The Federal Government estimates the number of internally displaced persons at six million due to terrorism. In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls at Chibok secondary school in Borno State. A significant number of the girls are still in the den of the terrorists. In the past two weeks, the insurgents have abducted over 200 internally displaced persons near three IDP camps in the Gamboru-Ngala Local Government Area of Borno.

The security of lives and property is the primal duty of the state. This entails the concept of ‘crime and punishment’ that undergirds a society.

Nigeria’s governments anyway are frail in enforcement, and given to specific application of the law, and the politicization of insecurity.

During the previous administration, the names of terrorism financiers were stowed away from the public although the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in 2021, released their names of six Nigerians to the government.

There is no need for the ongoing contention. Whenever suspects are identified, prosecution ought to be swift. This is standard law enforcement practice. However, unpleasant experience tells Nigerians that their government has never been keen to prosecute terrorists and their financiers. All things being equal, it proffers weak excuses.

In the 15 years that Islamic terrorists have tormented Nigeria, the government has not arraigned any major financier.

Elsewhere, a Swedish court jailed a Kurdish man in July for attempting to finance terrorism; all 16 Saudi-based terrorism financiers uncovered by Saudi Arabia in 2007 were mentioned and put on trial. Mirsad Kandic, 41, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a New York court in July for funding and provisioning terrorists in Iraq.

Nigeria should swiftly prosecute terror financiers and suspects and disrupt the funding sources of terrorists, bandits, and kidnappers.