Kids of rich Nigerians who finance Boko Haram

banker from Kastsina State, Farouk, now popularly known as the “underwear bomber”, hid explosives in his underwear which failed to detonate on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan.
Among other charges, he was arraigned for the attempted murder of 289 people and was in February 2012, sentenced to four life terms and a 50 year jail term.
There is also the story of Ibrahim Uwais, the son of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, who allegedly left with his two wives and children to join the ISIS.
The 41 year old devout Muslim who was perceived to have hated Boko Haram, its ideology and killing of innocent people, left his father, Muhammed Uwais, and other family members shocked.
Kunle Nwosu, a psychologist with the NSA office’s Counter-Terrorism Department, works on a de-radicalization programme started recently for these “rich misdirected boys” as he called them.

He said in many cases, most of their parents are nice, regular people and the kids seem well adjusted. They are obedient, well-mannered, got good grades in school and are volunteers in mosques. Religion plays a central role in their lives and they make efforts to pray five times daily.
“To be honest with you, you can’t imagine their kids being Boko Haram,” Nwosu stated.
Aliyu Ibrahim, an Islamic scholar in one of Maiduguri’s many Islamiyya (Islamic schools), explained why many kids from wealthy homes are Boko Haram supporters. “We have a lot of experience with these influential children. Many of these kids are Boko Haram fans. Something just goes wrong. It probably begins from drugs, stealing, waywardness and then sympathy for Boko Haram,” he said.

Big Problem
“If you read many of their statements, there is a similarity to them as if they’d been copied from a script. For example you keep seeing the phrase “I simply cannot sit here and let my brothers and sisters get killed by infidels; I am ready to die and so forth,” noted Nwosu.
Nwosu observed that most of the boys and girls in the facility were arrested before the coming of the Islamic State, IS, which has launched a terrorist campaign in the Arab world. He believes that many such youths who are open to extremist indoctrination might have since joined ISIS and that Nigeria may already have a large army of radicalized youths that could make the country a huge tinderbox.
But if nothing can be immediately done about Nigerian youths that might be flocking to join ISIS, certainly, back home, the state can take action against those who have been detained for links to Boko Haram. Or so it seems.
For, our reporter wondered why such potentially dangerous youths would be kept in detention for years, some as many as four years, without being brought to trial. But it is not as cut and dry as it appears, it seems. Even our security source at the camp balked when asked why the detainees had not been charged. He did not provide an answer.
But another security source, who is also a lawyer, who does not want to be named, said there is no legal obstacle preventing the military or security agencies from charging them to court, reasoning that there are a plethora of charges that can be brought against them.
“Basically you have something like knowingly attempting to provide material support and resources to a terrorist organization in the form of personnel — namely, himself, monies and so on,” he observed.
Even then, he added that ‘”a wide range of activities is criminalized under the Terror Act, including supplying weapons, money, personnel or training to providing things like humanitarian relief, conflict-resolution training and other expert advice or assistance.”
It is not known precisely how federal authorities arrived at its targets and under what laws some of these semi-juvenile detention facilities are run. In all, it was discovered that there are four facilities – one in Borno and Plateau states and two in Abuja – all catering to some 1,000 individuals aged between 15 and 30.

The National Security Adviser’s Office would not speak officially. The Department for State Security too said it is not aware of the existence of these facilities.
Similarly, the military appeared unwilling or unable to offer any information. The publication of this report was held up for several weeks in order to get the defence spokesman, Chris Olukolade, a Major General, to speak on the detention camps but it was difficult getting him until last week.

When confronted with our findings last week, Olukolade stated that he was not aware of any detention camp where young Boko Haram financiers or supporters were being held,
He however, promised to find out and react appropriately later. Until the time of going to press, Olukolade had not been able to provide any information on the matter.

The icirnigeria.org, however, learnt that investigation of many young people at various stages of radicalization is still ongoing. Also, agents are gathering intelligence and setting traps for unsuspecting targets like Ismaila.

This investigation was supported by Ford Foundation and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting