USAID and terrorist funding in Nigeria

Despite the strenuous efforts of the U.S Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Richard Mills, to deny that the U.S aid funds have aided terrorists violence and destructions in Nigeria, especially the Boko-Haram, many Nigerians would have none of that. A member of the House of Representatives Mr. Inuwa Garba has countered the claim, contending that the U.S envoy has no right to say if the allegations were true or false without adequate investigation.

The Pandora box of U.S involvement in terrorist funding though mostly muted, was in the open when the U.S Congressman, Mr. Scott Perry, said in a committee hearing that the USAID has helped to nurture and maintain a string of deadly terrorist organisations.

Bringing to the open what the American’s ‘Deep State’ does outside the purview of normal democratic process has raised airs especially in regions and countries where the nefarious activities of the deadly terrorist gangs have wreaked havoc on lives and livelihoods, including Nigeria. Nigeria’s legislature has refused to let the matter go under the carpet despite efforts of the U.S envoy to  dismiss the allegations.

From what is unfolding in Washington, it appears even more convincingly to keen watchers that the USAID was largely a partisan conduit by the Democratic Party to corruptly receive kick-backs from countries it allegedly helped as most monies given to these countries are funneled back to the mostly Democratic Party operatives to the tune of about 50% of what they received.

According to a report by Indian Express media, a 21 million USD earmarked for voter “turnout in India” was actually allocated to Bangladeshi students for “political and civic engagement” before the January 2024 elections in Bangladesh. Subsequently, the Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, who has cosied up to China was forced to resign and fled the country following a prolonged massive and violent student-led protests that left several hundreds dead.

At a speech in Miami recently, President Donald Trump queried “why do we need to spend 21 million USD for voter turnout in India? Wow, 21 million USD! I guess they were trying to get somebody else elected”.

However, funding student violent protests and manipulating elections might be vile but becomes insignificant to terrorist funding, and it is known that USAID activities were closely associated to the funding of terrorist, extremist groups and such other shadowy organisations, whose activities, Washington has used to destabilise domestic political situation in many countries and regions in the world. The overall aim is to effect regime-changes of governments and leaders whose policies do not sit in compliance with Washington’s needs and aspirations.

It is no doubt that the logistics supply chains of the so-called USAID humanitarian aid were used by the assets of the Deep State, including the U.S CIA to supply weapons and drugs to anti-government extremist groups in targeted countries.

Most target countries like Nigeria may no longer wonder at the resilience of the extremist groups despite the enormous pressure mounted at them by the country’s security forces. It is also no brainer that the USAID offices domiciled abroad are mostly operational bases for the special services of the U.S Deep State and part of the covert activities is to create a network of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) only used as a cover for the subversive activities of the USAID.

Thankfully, the Nigeria’s legislature whose members are directly representatives of the people including communities that had been adversely affected by the activities of extremist and terrorist groups, have vowed to investigate and probe the activities of USAID in the country. A dig into the activities of USAID, especially with the expose from Mr. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) might uncover the reasons for the unusual resilience of terrorist and extremist groups with some of them mutating to kidnapping and robbery gangs in Nigeria.