Six Nigerian nationals have been convicted by an Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for funding Boko Haram leading to insurgency in the northeastern part of the country.
The Nigerians were responsible for laundering the sum of $782, 000 between 2015 and 2016 with two of the convicts, Surajo Abubakar Muhammad and Saleh Yusuf Adamu were sentenced to life imprisonment; while the remaining four, Ibrahim Ali Alhassan, AbdurRahman Ado Musa, Bashir Ali Yusuf, and Muhammad Ibrahim Isa were handed ten-year imprisonment respectively.
“According to the judgment, all the accused were charged with funding a terror group (Boko Haram) by facilitating transfers of money from Dubai to Nigeria for alleged terror operations.
“Engaging in such an activity is a crime under Article 29, Clause 3 of UAE’s Federal Law No 7 of 2017 with regards to anti-terrorism law, documents were seen by this paper showed.”
Also revealed was that Boko Haram uses undercover agents to facilitate its funding, the agents are based in Nigeria.
“One of them, Alhaji Sa’idu, who is allegedly based in Nigeria and said to be a senior undercover Boko Haram member responsible for facilitating the group’s access to funds from its sponsors,” they said.
“Also fingered in some of the transitions is one Alhaji Ashiru, said to be a Nigerian government official and a senior undercover Boko Haram member, who facilitated the transfer of misappropriated public funds to the group.
The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, said Nigeria is aware of the convictions and has written to the UAE to know who was involved.
“Nigerian government has written firstly for copies of the proceedings, which will give us the opportunity to see whether justice was done or not. And on whether they have committed the crime, we requested to know who and who is involved, so that the Nigerian government will know what to do next.
“Nigerian government is working but it doesn’t have the exclusive control, it has to rely on the information provided by UAE. So, it is not in control of the speed of response or action.
“We are working on both the issues that they did not receive a fair hearing and that they were alleged to have supported Boko Haram activities,” Malami said.
However, Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, has expressed delight over the conviction of some Nigerians alleged to be sponsoring Boko Haram activities and urged the Federal Government to follow up on the findings of the United Arab Emirates on the convicts.
Zulum’s message contained in a statement on Tuesday by his spokesman, Malam Isa Gusau titled, ‘Zulum hails UAE on ‘Boko Haram sponsors’, asked FG to deploy a multi-stakeholder team to follow up, expand searchlight’.
The statement read in part, “Governor Babagana Umara Zulum is glad that for the first time in 11 years, there appears to be headway on tracking some alleged financiers of Boko Haram’s activities which have left thousands of citizens killed, millions displaced and private property and public institutions worth 9 billion dollars destroyed in Borno, other parts of the northeast and Nigeria at large.
“Zulum urged the Federal Government to consider setting up a multi-stakeholder team with trusted representatives from the Federal Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, the Nigerian Intelligence Agency, NIA, the Defence Intelligence Agency, DIA, the Multinational Joint Task Force in the Lake Chad, and the ECOWAS Intergovernmental Action Group on Terrorist Financing in West Africa, to assiduously work with the UAE Government to look into the issues raised by families crying foul play, and more importantly, to follow-up on the findings by the UAE with the hope of using the intelligence, if authenticated, to expand search on other Boko Haram sponsors that may be helping in similar ways.”
The Governor, who in February, and October this year, declared two days of statewide fasting and prayers against Boko Haram and their sponsors, urged the people of Borno to sustain prayers for God to expose all sponsors of Boko Haram and anyone who knowingly benefits from the crisis at the expense of peace in the State.
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