The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, has listed nine people and six Bureau De Change, BDCs, as financiers of terrorism in Nigeria.
The NFIU said the Nigeria Sanctions Committee convened on March 18, 2024, identified individuals and entities responsible for terrorism financing, among them Tukur Mamu who is on trial for similar offence.
“The Honourable Attorney General of the Federation, with the approval of the President, has thereupon designated the following individuals and entities to be listed on the Nigeria Sanctions List.”
The document mentioned Mamu, a publisher from Kaduna, who is currently on trial by the Federal Government for allegedly supporting terrorists involved in the March 2022 attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train. It claims that Mamu participated in financing terrorism by receiving and delivering ransom payments totaling over $200,000 to ISWAP terrorists for the release of hostages from the train attack.
The document said one of the individuals is “the suspected attacker of the St. Francis Catholic Church Owo, Ondo State on June 5, 2022, and the Kuje Correctional Center, Abuja on July 5, 2022.”
Another was described as “a member of the terrorist group Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladissudam; the group is associated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
“The subject was trained and served under Muktar Belmokhtar, aka One Eyed Out, led Al-Murabtoun Katibat of AQIM in Algeria and Mali.”
The NFIU said the individual “specialises in designing terrorist clandestine communication code and he is also an Improvised Explosive Device expert.
“The subject was also a gatekeeper to ANSARU leader, Mohammed Usman, aka Khalid Al-Bamawi. Equally, he was a courier and travel guide to AQIM Katibat in the desert of Algeria and Mali. He is into carpentry. The subject fled the Kuje Correctional Centre on July 5, 2022. He is currently at large.”
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Another was identified as “a senior commander of the Islamic State of West Africa Province Okene.”
The individual, as indicated by the agency, “came into limelight in 2012 at the North Central wing of Boko Haram.
“The group is suspected of the attacks carried out around Federal Capital Territory and the South West Geographical Zone, including the June 5, 2022 attack on St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State.”
Another individual mentioned in the document served as a financial courier to ISWAP Okene, responsible for distributing funds to the widows and wives of terrorist fighters within the group.
According to the document, a different individual transferred N60 million to terrorism convicts in 2015 and received a total of N189 million between 2016 and 2018. This person also owns entities and businesses identified in a UAE court judgment as facilitating the transfer of terrorist funds from Dubai to Nigeria.
Another individual received a total of N57 million between 2014 and 2017, while another had a total inflow of N61.4 billion and outflow of N51.7 billion from his accounts.
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