By: Sunday Ameh
There are indications that President Bola Tinubu may soon reveal the identities of individuals and groups financing terrorism in Nigeria, according to the Presidency.
Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Policy Communication, disclosed this in an interview in Abuja while speaking on the administration’s intensified efforts to end terrorism and kidnapping across the country.
Bwala said the President has “moved beyond talking about terrorism to tracing the money behind it,” adding that the financial networks supporting insurgent and criminal groups are gradually being exposed.
According to him, “the network of financiers enabling these criminals is being quietly uncovered, and Nigerians will soon see firm actions that strike at the heart of the problem.” He noted that President Tinubu is delivering “real leadership, backed by real results.”
Terrorism financing has been a major challenge in Nigeria’s counterterrorism drive, with links connecting Boko Haram, ISWAP, and bandit groups to illegal mining, cattle rustling, kidnapping-for-ransom, extortion, and territorial control.
Bwala further explained that many of these armed groups also maintain opportunistic alliances with smuggling networks across the Sahel.
He said Nigeria’s prolonged insecurity cannot be separated from the destabilisation that followed the 2011 uprisings in Libya and Egypt, which led to the collapse of the Libyan state. This, he said, allowed traffickers aligned to extremist organisations to disperse heavy weapons across the Sahel into West Africa.
“These weapons flowing through smuggling routes eventually strengthened Boko Haram, ISWAP and later banditry networks in Nigeria,” Bwala added.
The Presidency maintains that the Tinubu administration has expanded joint security operations nationwide and is intensifying intelligence-led measures aimed at cutting off the finances sustaining terrorist groups.
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