Nigeria And State Complicity With Terrorists By - ANN MCGREGOR

State complicity with terrorists and organized crime are at the heart of instability in the Sahel, Sahara and Lake Chad regions, fomenting conflict and fuelling the rise of Boko Haram kidnapping.

In the past decades, increasing instability in the Sahel, Sahara and Lake Chad has been a source of growing concern in Europe and the United States. Weakness of state control on these areas allowed Al-Qaeda (AQIM) and other Jihadist groups to establish their influence and establish safe haven.

As in the past, governments are tempted to use Jihadist group and organized crime as a political resource by allowing their allies to benefit from criminal activities, which has clear implication for policy and the region’s instability. The importance of organized criminal activities in the Sahel, Sahara and Lake Chad regions stems from the fact that there are few alternative activities that produce profits and rapid enrichment. Repeated hostage takings have caused tourism on the Sahel and the Sahara to collapse, thereby further limiting opportunities for employment and profit outside criminal activities.

Kidnapping for ransom has developed into a highly lucrative industry that has allowed AQIM and ISWA (Islamic States of West Africa) Boko Haram  and Ansaru become a significant political and military force.

Extrapolating from available information, the income drive by AQIM, MUJAO, Boko Haram and associated mediators is likely to total $100 million dollars since 2008, paid mostly by western and Nigerian governments.

Reports of ransom payment are never officially confirmed by the government concerned and media reports vary on the amount involved, although most range between $1.5 million and $4 million per hostage. The only reliable information in this respect came from the Swiss.

In 2009, the Swiss government authorized the use of $5 million in relation to the negotiations over the release of three of its nationals of which $2 million appears to have been set aside for the ransom payments. Since 2009, the Swiss have perfected the art of private diplomacy to offer themselves as “neutral interlocutors” in many of Africa’s conflicts. That also comes with a price, but one has attracted and discomforted European and US governments is the so called “mediations, ceasefire and release of 105 Dapchi school girls.”

The puzzle and the jigsaw was the manner of the abduction and release. Boko Haram are keeping in their custody one of the Christian girl among the 110 Dapchi school girls they abducted, Leah Sharibu has refused to renounce her faith. However western intelligence sources believe Boko Haram and the mediators Swiss and Nigerians are asking the Nigerian government for more money to pay ransom and further release of six high profile Barnawi faction detainees in the custody of Directorate of State Service. This is creating discomfort.

The Swiss intelligence officer, Pascal Holliger along with local accessories, Mustapha Zannah, a lawyer who runs a private school in Maiduguri that gives free education to the orphan-children of Boko Haram fighters — the school was established and funded by the International Islamic Relief Organisation, a Saudi-based charity organization, on United States Department’s list of charities with ties to terrorist organisations  and Aisha Wakil, facilitated the ransom payment of €5million euro and swap of detained top Boko Haram commanders .

On the 8th March 2012 a faction of Boko Haram Ansaru (Barnawi) killed two western hostages in the Northern Nigerian city of Sokoto, a British quantity surveyor Chris Mcmanus and an Italian Engineer Franco Lamolinara. This was after British Foreign and Commonwealth Office had paid the sum of more than One Million Pound to Mustapha Chafi to facilitate the release of the hostages. The failure of ransom talk with Chafi according to our source was because the money was tempered with by the mediators.

Despite claim of ceasefire talks between Nigerian government and Boko Haram (Barnawi Faction) affiliated to ISIS or ISWA the attacks has remain unrelenting. 

Will the specially designated global terrorist Khalid  Al Barnawi  accused of killing ten westerners be part of the exchange swap? The UK,US,EU and UN are watching. One western diplomat said: “actors involved in the fraudulent negotiations with terrorists are currently wielding decisive political and military positions in Nigeria and are influential players in the security sector.”

*Mcgregor, an expert in global security and intelligence.

•Courtesy http://newsplusviews.news. Mcgregor, an expert in global security and intelligence.