‘Some politicians funding terrorism in Nigeria’ — Former CDS Irabor

Former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Lucky Irabor(retd.), has stated that some politicians in the country are exploiting andeven fuelling insecurity to gain political advantage, warning that Nigeria’ssecurity challenges are far too complex to be attributed to a single cause. Irabor made the disclosure during an interview on ChannelsTelevision on Monday, where he analysed the layers of criminality drivingviolence across different parts of the country. His comments come barely 24 hours after presidential aideDaniel Bwala revealed that the Federal Government was preparing to publiclyname individuals financing terrorism. Speaking on the complexity of Nigeria’s security landscape,Irabor cautioned against sweeping generalisations that place all violentincidents under one categorisation. According to him, the country faces multiple forms ofsecurity threats — ideological,criminal, political and economic — thatoperate simultaneously. “You can’t hold people for their views, but the reality isthat our issues in terms of security challenges are multifaceted,” he said. “Just as we have terrorists who have an ideology, we equallyhave those who are bent on targeting Christians, and there are also those whoare targeting communities, desiring to displace communities and wanting to stayin those communities to be able to have a voice.” He explained that various violent actors, includingterrorists, bandits, community displacers and economic criminals, operate withdifferent motives, making the crisis difficult to simplify. “If you lump the entire thing into one, the analysis wouldbe wrong,” he said. Addressing claims that insecurity is purely political, theformer defence chief acknowledged that while political motives exist, they donot account for all incidents. “Those who say it is political, that would also be lumpingall the issues to say all other issues do not matter — that’s alsonot correct,” he noted. He, however, admitted that some political figures haveweaponised insecurity for personal gain. “That does not mean some politicians have not takenadvantage of the insecurity to perhaps gain some sort of leverage; to give theimpression that they can do better,” he said. “Others perhaps want to score a point that there’s poorgovernance; they could also instigate crisis in one way or the other,” headded.

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