Nigeria’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN) is unhappy and angry about the recent arrest of some persons allegedly funding Boko Haram terrorists, including operators of some Bureau De Change said to have been facilitating the transfer of money to the terrorists, SaharaReporters has learnt.

A top source in the government told SaharaReporters how Malami was opposed to the raid and subsequently at loggerheads with the task force for carrying it out.

It had earlier been reported how about 400 persons were arrested for allegedly funding Boko Haram terrorists.

The series of arrests were made in Kano, Borno, Abuja, Lagos, Sokoto, Adamawa, Kaduna and Zamfara, according to a Daily Trust report. It was also reported that traders at the foreign exchange open market in Wapa, Fagge Local Government, were picked up on March 9, 15th and 16th.

Meanwhile, according to the source, apart from Malami opposing the raid, he also opposes having the names of those arrested released to the public. “Malami was opposed to the raid and now he opposes having the names of those arrested revealed. So, he is fighting the task force that carried out the raid.

“He is saying it was illegal. You see, some of those arrested were people he had freed through his Special Fiat Court that sat in Niger state and parts of Abuja. Those guys are wealthy and he wants to collect money from them and let them off,” the source told SaharaReporters.

It has been reported that 19 Bureax De Change owned by persons with “direct connection with Boko Haram” were uncovered, while over N300 billion was found to have been pumped into the funding of terrorism in the country. So, there is a huge amount of money involved, transferred through illicit means.

Those arrested are reportedly being kept in military and Department of State Services facilities in Abuja and other places. But despite Malami’s resistance to having their names revealed to the public, the identities of some Bureau De Change operators arrested for facilitating the transfer of money to the terrorists have been revealed. Some of them were traders at the foreign exchange open market in Wapa, Fagge Local Government of Kano state and identified as Baba Usaini, Abubakar Yellow (Amfani), Yusuf Ali Yusuf (Babangida), Ibrahim Shani, Auwal Fagge and Muhammad Lawan Sani (a gold dealer), according to a Daily Trust report.

Despite being the nation that has suffered the heaviest casualties through Boko Haram atrocities for many years, with over 30,000 thousand people killed and millions of others displaced, Nigeria has shown weakness in dealing decisively with the terrorists and blocking their source of funding. It took a court in the United Arab Emirates in 2020 to jail six Nigerians for funding the terror group.

In November 2020, there were reports of how six Nigerians were facing prison terms of 10 years to life after a federal appeals court in the United Arab Emirates upheld their convictions for funding the terrorist group Boko Haram.