Revealed! Nigerian govt paid huge sum for release of Dapchi girls

The Federal Government paid a huge ransom to Boko Haram insurgents for the release of the abducted Dapchi schoolgirls in March, 2018, a United Nations report has revealed.

This is despite denials by the government that it did not pay any ransom to the insurgents to secure the release of the girls, insisting that they were released in exchange for detained Boko Haram commanders.

“In Nigeria, 111 schoolgirls from the town of Dapchi were kidnapped on 18 February, 2018 and released by ISWAP on 21 March in exchange for a large ransom payment”, the report said.

Read also: Nigerian Journalist detained for 2 years without trial finally released

The UN report, which cites ransom from abductions, donations from charity groups and the cash economy as the things fuelling the bloody activities of the Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in the Lake Chad Basin region, is contained in the 22nd Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and associated individuals and entities.

According to the report, which was signed by Edmund Fitton-Brown, Coordinator, Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team and Kairat Umarov, Chair, Security Council Committee, the number of doctrinally based non-governmental organisations sending funds to local terrorist groups was growing, and Member States were concerned that radicalisation was increasing the threat level in the Sahel.

The report also claim “Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province have had a similar impact in their areas of control, including the Lake Chad basin.

“The predominance in the region of the cash economy, without controls, is conducive to terrorist groups funded by extortion, charitable donations, smuggling, remittances and kidnapping.”

 

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