Politicians Funding Terrorism in Nigeria, Says Ex-Defence Chief Irabor

Gen. Lucky Irabor, Nigeria’s former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), has accused some politicians in the country of exploiting and even actively fueling insecurity to achieve political advantages.

Irabor cautioned that the nation’s security challenges are far too complex to be linked to just a single cause

Irabor leveled the allegation during an interview on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” on Monday evening monitored by Persecondnews.

He, however, admitted that some political figures in the country have weaponised insecurity for personal gain.

“That does not mean some politicians have not taken advantage of the insecurity to perhaps gain some sort of leverage to give the impression that they can do better.

“Others perhaps want to score a point that there’s poor governance; they could also instigate crisis in one way or the other,” Persecondnews quotes Irabor as saying.

Irabor’s remarks come less than a day after presidential aide Daniel Bwala stated the Federal Government would soon publicly name individuals financing terrorism.

Discussing the complexity of Nigeria’s security issues, Irabor warned against making sweeping generalizations, emphasizing that the country simultaneously faces multiple forms of threats: ideological, criminal, political, and economic.

“You can’t hold people for their views, but the reality is that our issues in terms of security challenges are multifaceted,” he said.

“Just as we have terrorists who have an ideology, we equally have those who are bent on targeting Christians, and there are also those who are targeting communities, desiring to displace communities and wanting to stay in those communities to be able to have a voice.”

He explained that various violent actors, including terrorists, bandits, community displacers and economic criminals, operate with different motives, making the crisis difficult to simplify.

“If you lump the entire thing into one, the analysis would be wrong,” he said.

Addressing claims that insecurity is purely political, the former defence chief acknowledged that while political motives exist, they do not account for all incidents.

“Those who say it is political, that would also be lumping all the issues to say all other issues do not matter — that’s also not correct,” he said.