Politicians Funding Us, Says Boko Haram Spokesman

Suspected Boko Haram Members

A man who confessed to be a spokesman of Boko Haram has said politicians are funding the activities of the group, according to the State Security Service (SSS).

The SSS said at a press briefing Monday that on November 3, it arrested Ali Sanda Umar Konduga who admitted to being one of the spokesmen of Boko Haram, using the name “Usman al-Zawahiri”.

Al-Zawahiri is also the name of the leader of al Qaeda.

"He was a former political thug operating under a group widely known as ECOMOG," said SSS spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar.

ECOMOG was a militia group allegedly funded by politicians many years ago in Borno State. Some former members have now joined Boko Haram, diplomats and security experts have said, according to Reuters.

Chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and former deputy chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Brigadier-General Jeremiah Useni (rtd), had claimed earlier this year that Boko Haram was originally set up by politicians to rig elections in Borno State but it had gone out of hand.

Ogar told journalists in Abuja Monday that the arrest of Konduga “further confirms the Service position that some of the Boko Haram extremists have political patronage and sponsorship. This is more so as al-Zawahiri has so far made valuable confessions in this regard".

The SSS said a politician in Borno recruited al-Zawahiri, who attended the press briefing, gave him a new name to portray him as an extremist and paid him to send threatening text messages to judges and other politicians.

Konduga, speaking in Hausa and translated by SSS officials, named members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who he said paid him to disrupt the leadership of the state.

Useni had recalled, on a visit to the Presidential Villa in August, that when he was deputy national chairman of the ANPP (2003-2006), he went to Borno State to inaugurate projects and saw an army of youths selling petroleum products in jerry cans by the roadside.

Useni said: “I asked him (governor) why he allowed them to be selling on a major road like that, and he said, 'No, no, leave them, they are very useful. (During) general elections, we can use them to turn everywhere'.”

Compiled by: Silverboy & Friends