Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, has revealed that terrorists sustain their operations using funds generated from illegal gold mining. Speaking on a national television programme, he highlighted the difficulty in exposing or prosecuting terror financiers due to their complex networks and international connections.
When asked about their main source of financing, the defence chief replied, “Gold. They try to circulate this money, and that is why it is important for us to be able to track these things.”
He explained that the process involves many legal challenges and international dimensions, noting that some of the funding originates from outside the country and cannot be fully addressed internally.
At the local level, General Musa said that terror groups receive daily funds from individuals employed by them. “The local ones, what they do normally is that they try to employ a few individuals, provide motorcycles to them, something to do, and those are remitting funds daily into some account,” he said.
General Musa attributed the recent arrest of key terror leaders to meticulous planning by the Nigerian Air Force, Army, Navy, the Directorate of Military Intelligence, and the Department of State Services. He commented, “What has changed is that we have synergy with all the organisations… and that is why we have seen all the successes.”
He described the arrests as among the most significant, naming the captured leaders as Mahmud Muhammad Usman of Ansaru and Mahmud al-Nigeri of the Mahmuda group. “Getting the two of them shows how detailed and how the planning went through, and that was how they were able to pick the two of them. These are guys that were haunted for a very long time. It shows that intelligence and operational work are working together,” he said.
General Musa assured that military personnel worked covertly around the clock before apprehending the suspects and reassured Nigerians that the fight against terrorists and other non-state actors would intensify.
He also advised citizens to cultivate basic combat skills as a form of survival training, likening security awareness to learning to drive or swim, and noted that in some regions, security education is compulsory.
Calling for legal reform, he emphasized the need for stricter sanctions and the establishment of special courts to expedite terrorism-related cases. He said, “We need to review our legal system. Maybe we’ll have special courts that will attend to such cases as fast as possible. I think we also need to review some of the punishments.”
General Musa added that the DSS, NIA, and other security agencies are tracing political actors who finance insecurity. “I can assure you the attorney-general of the federation and the NSA (Nuhu Ribadu) are all working seriously to ensure that we address those issues,” he stated.
He commended the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit for its efforts in tracking financial links to terrorism. “The NFIU has been doing so much; apart from the intelligence set-up, the financial links are also being followed through and through, and arrests have been made,” he said.
On the topic of the Southeast, he noted that the region has experienced relative peace since the arrest of pro-Biafra agitator Simon Ekpa in Finland last November. He said troops are now active in pursuing Ekpa’s lieutenants across Imo, Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi, and Abia states. “He is still undergoing prosecution in Finland. So, we are hopeful. When we talked about him, people thought we were making noise, but since he has been arrested, the Southeast is getting better. We are going to go after the likes of him, wherever they are, and whatever it takes until we bring them down.”
