An Australian expert, Dr Stephen Davis, who has close ties with Boko Haram has said the activities of the group is funded through series of legitimate business channeled through the Central bank of Nigeria.
Dr. Davis, spent four months in Nigeria trying to negotiate the release the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls from Boko Haram said this in a telephone chat, from his base in Australia.
He noted in the interview that Western countries could not trace the majority of the source of funding to Boko Haram because “it is done through a legal channel, through the gatekeeper, the CBN, and that makes it very easy to cover up.”
The Negotiatior who was contracted by the Federal Government, also enthused that a Boko Haram commander told him a senior CBN official facilitates things.
“One of the biggest of suppliers of arms and military uniforms to the JAS (Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, better known as Boko Haram) currently lives in Cairo, Egypt.He is the recipient of money sent by political sponsors from Nigeria. The funds go through the CBN’s financial system and appears to be a legal transaction.
“Meanwhile, the CBN official who handles the funding is an uncle to three of those arrested in connection with the Nyanya bombings. The three boys lived with him. They were arrested by the SSS (Department of State Security) after the bombings but they do not seem to have been interrogated about their uncle in CBN. Or if they have given up information about their uncle then the SSS has not moved against him.”
“Also, a senior official of CBN, who recently left the bank, was very close to Sodiq Aminu Ogwuche, the mastermind of the Nyanya bombings who also schooled in Sudan. Boko haram commanders said Ogwuche’s wife used to visit this top official in his office at the headquarters of the bank in Abuja before the Nyanya bombings. They were very close,” Davis said.
The former Canon Emeritus at Coventry Cathedral, UK, said he decided to come out to speak now because the Nigerian authorities were not acting fast and he was heart-broken by the evils being done to the kidnapped Chibok girls and the many other girls and boys being kidnapped