REVEALED: How Boko Haram gets influential sponsors

The Senate was stunned on Thursday as Senator Buka Ibrahim revealed that the Boko Haram sect employ threat tactics in getting influential persons to fund their activities.

The Senator also said the Joint Task Force has killed more people in North East region than the sect or even criminals.

Senator Buka was recently nominated by Boko Haram along side Gen Mohammadu Buhari, to lead their negotiation with the Federal Government over some of their greviances.


While contributing to a motion on banditry attacks on Kabaru village in Mau Local Government area of Zamfara sponsored by Senator Kabiru Marafa and co-sponsored by all the Senators, Sen Buka blamed security agencies for the escalation of violence in the zone.

The sponsor of the motion, Senator Kabiru Marafa had earlier described what is happening in Zamfara as barbaric and called on the Federal government to work on Anka-Dangulbi-Dansadau-Birnin Gwari and Dayi-Tsafe-Dangulbi federal roads as a means of opening up the area and linking it with neighbouring communities.

Buka said “Today people are being forced to partially fund Boko haram because of the activities of this people.

“They kill one, two or three people around, they frighten everybody and now everybody is succumbing to their demands. So today people are being forced to partially fund Boko Haram because of the activities of these criminals.”

He accused security agencies of mass killings thus “security agencies are the number one killers in term of number. I am surprised the other day when the Chief of Army Staff said Boko Haram killed three thousand people; the security agencies have killed a lot more than three thousands when this thing started. On the first day that this crisis erupted in Maiduguri, over five thousand people were killed.”

Buka who stated that the sect had being in existence for a long time without going violent said ” It is particularly the police who pushed the Boko Haram people to the wall by killing their leaders, killing thousands of other innocent people.

That is what forced them to come out against the Nigeria state. It is the attitude of the security agencies; the way they operate that really makes it worse, not any better.
Of course naturally, common criminals will take advantage of the situation to extort money from people and then the armed robbers are the third killers, and this is happening in Zamfara”, he said.

Worried by the disclosure of Sen Buka, the Senate President, Senator David Mark, directed the Police Affairs committee to look into allegations and promised that senate will do everything possible to ensure that the high level of insecurity in the country is reduced.