An article in This Day, published on 11 February 2021, lists
a range of criminal networks that have been in operation over the last five years. A chance arrest of a high-ranking Boko Haram member in Kaduna State in 2016, "revealed a pattern of financial flows and transactions" - via money-laundering accounts in United Arab Emirates - "not only to Boko Haram field operatives but to other criminal cartels, particularly those engaged in kidnappings for ransom." According to a former Inspector General of Police, from June 2011 to May 2019, over 3 billion Naira (7 million Euro) had been collected by armed groups from relatives in Zamfara State alone.
Frans Veerman, Managing director of World Watch Research (WWR), comments: "The article is quite shocking and shows that Nigerian criminal networks work internationally, are well-organized and well-funded. As the article states, there is, for instance, clearly "˜a nexus between kidnappings for ransom and terrorism as well as between gold prospecting in Zamfara State and the general wave of criminality by herdsmen that has spread to the southern part of the country with dire implications for national peace and security." The article suggests that armed bandits and Fulani militia engaged in violent attacks are in fact employees of a larger criminal network, with many coming from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. However the writer misses a crucial point: This is not about jihadists working for organized crime; the situation in Nigeria is the other way round: It is organized crime being used for jihadist ends. As pointed out in a previous WWR article (WWR, 19 March 2021), the man
pulling the strings behind the scenes would seem to be Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram"s leader, and it is his Islamist ideology which increasingly plays a defining role."
Frans Veerman concludes: "Although the article in This Day uncovers much interesting information, it has largely overseen the religious dimension. This is the case in much reporting on crime in Nigeria. Indeed, even the increased use of the term "˜bandits" for Fulani aggressors in the media could be seen as an attempt at "˜secularizing" the description of what is actually going on. This is a new angle to what WWR refers to as "˜
persecution eclipse" (see: Nigeria - Persecution or civil unrest?, Open Doors Analytical, 2013, p.11)."
