APC Hindering The Release Of The Chibok Schoolgirls – Stephen Davis

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.”  (AIT)