Bandits providing funds for Boko Haram – El-Rufai

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State says bandits are providing funds for the Boko Haram insurgents causing mayhem mostly in the North-East.

He stated this when he featured as a guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, asserting that a strong link had been established between the bandits terrorising the North-West and the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East region.

The governor restated that his administration would not negotiate with bandits.

“It has been established that the kidnapping operations (by bandits) are substantially funding Boko Haram activities in the North-East.

“Boko Haram has no way of getting any money and some of them have slipped and joined the ranks of the bandits, and together they are doing this to raise a large amount of money that are being used to fund the intensified operations of Boko Haram.”

He said there was no way Boko Haram could gather money to fund their operations in the North East without the help of bandits in the North-West.

According to the governor, a branch of the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) – a splinter of the Boko Haram sect – is assembling in the forest in the Birnin Gwari Local Government of Kaduna State.

He, however, stated that the leader of the group had been arrested and a lot of his commanders killed in military airstrikes.

“We insisted that these are insurgents, they are terrorists; they are fighting the sovereignty to Nigeria and we must treat them as such.”

“The bulk of the money is going into terrorist financing; there is a branch of ISWAP called Ansar-Ur that is congregating in the forest in Birnin Gwari, led by a man and their objectives are very similar to Boko Haram, except that they are not against western education,” he said.