In less than two months after he accused Senator Ali Modu
Sherrif, former governor of Borno State and former Chief of Army Staff, Gen.
Azubuike Ihejirika of being sponsors of the Boko Haram sect. Stephen Davis this
time has accused the opposition party of hindering the release of the Chibok
schoolgirls.
Further to the delayed release of the girls and the reasons
for it, he warned that if the girls are set free without the leaders of Boko
Haram either reined in or their sponsors stopped, Nigeria should expect an
endless orgy of abductions by the same group in future.
In an interview Davis granted a UK news network, Channel 4
few days ago, he stated that: “The Nigerian opposition politicians sponsoring
Boko Haram have to be stopped if hundreds of local girls are to be saved.”
The credibility of the platform given to Davis was an
indication that international support for his allegations is rapidly gaining
acceptance. He claimed to have been frustrated by a number of unsuccessful
attempts to secure the abducted girls’ release, and alleged that from the
Nigerian media, he saw an undeniable connection between the Chibok girls’
fate and cutting off the funding that is Boko Haram’s lifeblood.
In particular, he emphasized the role some “senior
politicians of a major opposition party are playing in channeling money from
Al Qaeda to Boko Haram. ”
He argued that “these individuals are bank-rolling the
group’s brutal activities to create instability ahead of the February 2015
Nigerian general election. There would be an endless cycle of evil if the
Chibok girls are freed without the group’s sponsors being stopped. It would
simply lead to many more young women being taken in their place.”
A UK online report noted that: “The need to tackle
terrorism at its source rather than simply through military action has been
major news in the UK for close to a month. Some military chiefs recently
grabbed national headlines when they announced that cutting off the financing
that keeps terror groups armed and dangerous is key to the overall strategy of
winning the war on terror.”
Davis further cautioned that: “Tackling the moneymen behind
Boko Haram must be an essential part of the West’s anti-terror approach. At the
same time, those politicians implicated in the terror funding scandal must be
investigated without delay. To do otherwise would mean unleashing untold trauma
and devastation on hundreds more innocent Nigerian girls. To these young women
and their families, the cost of further inaction would be incalculable.”
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