The federal government has identified 100 high-risk financiers of Boko Haram.
This was made known by the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola at the 3rd Ministerial Conference on Counter-Terrorism Financing “No Money for Terror” which took place in India.
He said that these financiers have link to at least 10 different countries of the world.
According to a statement made available to journalists by his aide, Abdulmalik Suleiman on Sunday, Aregbesola was highlighting the benefits of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence
Unit (NFIU) in the fight against terrorism.
He said that yhe Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has played a significant role in supporting all their intelligence, security, and military services.
He said that in 2019 the NFIU commenced an in-depth analysis of the financing of the Boko Haram group and the analysis, which took almost 18 months to complete resulted in the identification of almost 100 high-risk financiers and identified links to 10 different countries.
The NFIU was able to build a thorough picture of the transnational sources of the group’s finance using intelligence from several countries, including immediate neighbours, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Togo.
He also said that the results of the analysis resulted in the arrest of 48 of the financiers and the ongoing prosecution of a number of them.
Aregbesola also canvassed improved welfare for Nigerians living, studying or seeking business opportunities in India.
He made a four-point demand from the Indian government for an improved well being of Nigerians living in that country.
Aregbesola also advocated a change in the Indian Visa Policy for Nigerian Students, to allow Nigerian students have visa for study programs and not on six monthly basis which is burdensome in cost and time.
