The Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere has challenged the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to take prompt action against the alleged financiers of terrorism now.
Recall that the Buhari-led government on Thursday, February 3, 2022, disclosed that it had discovered some Nigerians supporting Boko Haram terrorists and the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP).
During a press conference, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the terrorism sponsors were fished out by the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).
The minister added that the NFIU discovered 424 associates/supporters of the financiers, about 123 companies and 33 bureaux de change linked with terrorism.
Reacting to the development, Afenifere Spokesman, Jare Ajayi, urged the government to immediately prosecute the identified terrorism sponsors rather than just periodically announcing the discovery of such individuals.
Ajayi insisted that Nigerians are no longer interested in the disclosures by the government as many of the claims and promises made in the past were not followed up with necessary actions.
He added that the disclosure by Governor Babangana Zulum of Borno State that ISWAP was about taking over Nigeria should be a serious reason for concern.
“But other than occasional reports of bombardments of terrorists’ camps by the military, no concrete steps are seen to be taken by the government to tackle the roots of the problem.
“Indeed, the failure of the government to act decisively in this respect has emboldened the terrorists to be more daring – leading to the death of thousands of people and capturing of many communities particularly in the northern part of the country by the terror groups,” he said.
Ajayi recalled that the United Arab Emirates convicted six Nigerians listed last year to be among the 39 terrorists on its wanted list for setting up a Boko Haram cell in the UAE to raise funds and material assistance for insurgents in Nigeria.
He said that the UAE found the affected Nigerians to have transferred up to $800,000 in favour of Boko Haram between 2015 and 2016, but the Federal Government failed to follow up on the case.
