A retired Navy Commodore, Kunle Olawunmi, has revealed that Boko Haram terrorists mentioned names of current governors, senators and Aso Rock officials as their sponsors during interrogation.
He however insisted that President Muhammadu Buhari has refused to go after the high-profile politicians for reasons best known to him.
Speaking on Wednesday while featuring on Channels Television flagship breakfast programme, ‘Sunrise Daily,’ Olawunmi described as an “aberration,” the early morning Tuesday attack by bloodthirsty bandits on the Kaduna campus of Nigeria’s foremost military university, the Nigerian Defence Academy, NDA, where two military officers were killed and another kidnapped.
He said, “It is an aberration; you don’t attack the Nigerian Defence Academy and get away with it.”
Lamenting that the NDA, like other military infrastructure in the country, carelessly opens its doors to every Tom, Dick and Harry on Fridays for Jumat prayer, Olawunmi averred that terrorists and criminals profile military and security environments during Muslim prayers on Fridays.
He said, “In 2017, I carried out an investigation commissioned by the Minister of Defence to check what was going on with the training and the security at the NDA. I remember I spent about a week in the NDA with the commandant and the staff, but something struck me: every Friday, the gate of NDA is thrown open and everybody has access to pray in the mosque.
“On Fridays, you are going to see same thing happening across all military formations in the country…if you go to the Defence Headquarters, I served at the Defence Headquarters as the Deputy Director, Defence Administration, between 2015 and 2017, throughout my two years at the Defence Headquarters, I received visitors twice because of the strict security architecture there, but every Friday, the gate of the Defence Headquarters is thrown wide open for everybody to come in and observe Jumat.
“That is the time the terrorists have the time to profile our security environment. It has always been the case. I have served the military intelligence for the past 35 years. Our problem is religion and socio-cultural.”
Olawunmi, a Professor of Global Security Studies, further said that he was a member of the Intelligence Brief at the Defence Headquarters during the leadership of the then Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin, rtd., adding that he told the then CDS that the centre of gravity of the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging the North-East and spreading to other parts of Nigeria was the sponsors.
He added, “I told General Olonisakin then that the centre of this problem cannot be solved the same way we solved the problem of the Niger Delta. The Niger Delta problem was solved during the tenure if late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, basically by me and I told them that we can’t use that same template for Boko Haram.
“I told General Olonisakin to look at the centre of gravity of the problem. I was made a member of the committee in 2016-2017, including the late Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru.
“I told them that the centre of gravity of Boko Haram in Nigeria is the sponsors of the programme. It was beyond us because the job we needed to do was kinetic, but we cannot resolve issues of sponsors of Boko Haram that were in Buhari’s government that we know them. That was why we couldn’t pursue that aspect that could have resolved the issue because we need to arrest people.”
Recall that the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, had earlier in the year said the Nigerian government arrested some Bureau De Change operators who were facilitating the transfer of money to Boko Haram terrorists.
But Olawunmi said the government has not been able to prosecute the sponsors because it is allegedly partisan.
He said, “Recently, 400 people were gathered as sponsors of Boko Haram, why is it that the Buhari government has refused to try them? Why can’t this government bring them to trial if not that they are partisan and part of the charade that is going on?
“You remember this Boko Haram issue started in 2012 and I was in the military intelligence at that time. We arrested those people. My organisation actually conducted interrogation and they (suspects) mentioned names. I can’t come on air and start mentioning names of people that are presently in government that I know that the boys that we arrested mentioned. Some of them are governors now, some of them are in the Senate, some of them are in Aso Rock.
“Why should a government decide to cause this kind of embarrassment and insecurity to the sense of what happened yesterday at the NDA?”
The intelligence expert added that terrorist financiers want to turn Nigeria to Taliban type of country.
Olawunmi also revealed that the Department of State Services, DSS, has tremendous information on terrorists, but can’t do anything with the body language of the Commander-in-Chief.
Olawunmi expressed the hope that the next Nigerian President in 2023 might have the willpower to bring the high-profile sponsors of Boko Haram to book.
