Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai has revealed that their is a connection between the bandits terrorising people in the North west and the boko haram insurgents operating in the North East.
The Governor while speaking on channels TV political programme said “It has been established that the kidnapping operations (by bandits) are substantially funding Boko Haram activities in the North East.
According to him, the Boko Haram terrorists 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 explained that this was so as the criminals now have various specialised roles within their ranks which enable them to attack communities.
Governor El-Rufai listed such roles to include informants, petrol suppliers, truck suppliers, food suppliers, suppliers of weapons and ammunition, and doctors who treat insurgents who sustain bullet wounds during attacks.
He stressed that 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 Birnin Gwari Local Government of Kaduna State.
He, however, stated that the leader of the group has been arrested and a lot of his commanders have been killed in military airstrikes.
