OBI DISAGREES WITH ATIKU ON SUBSIDY, FAULTS MISMANAGEMENT
Read Time:2 Minute, 8 Second
The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit has uncovered an emerging crowdfunding network being exploited to raise and channel funds for terrorist operations.
This is as the agency said terrorist financiers were opening bank accounts in women’s names as well as using phone numbers for mobile banking or account alerts that are not registered to the account holder or the true beneficiary.
The disclosures are contained in the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report,
According to the report, the crowdfunding scheme involves foreign-based facilitators using social media platforms to solicit donations under the guise of humanitarian relief or educational support, before moving the funds through multiple layers to terrorist operatives in Nigeria.
The NFIU said hundreds of sympathisers were typically encouraged to make relatively small donations, ranging from $50 to $500, through PayPal pages or conventional bank accounts, with the amounts deliberately kept low enough to evade automated anti-money laundering alerts.
“The following is a case study on Crowdfunding Network identified during the year: A foreign-based facilitator runs social-media campaigns claiming humanitarian relief or educational support and uses encrypted apps (Telegram, Signal) to share links to convincing PayPal pages or standard bank accounts.
“Hundreds of sympathiser donors contribute $50–$500 each, amounts small enough to avoid most automated AML alerts,” the report read.
The ex-governor of Anambra State spoke on Monday at the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, while reacting to the debate over whether fuel subsidy should be restored as proposed by Atiku.
Atiku, who campaigned for the removal of fuel subsidy during the 2023 presidential election, has said he would restore the policy if elected president in 2027.
But Obi maintained that subsidy removal remained necessary, arguing that the problem was the failure to properly manage and invest the resources saved from the policy.
“I subscribe and I maintain that we need to remove subsidy. Mismanagement of the proceeds should not be the reason for not removing it,” Obi said.
He argued that the government should have provided alternatives to cushion the impact of subsidy removal on Nigerians while ensuring that the savings were deployed to productive sectors.
“What we should have done is that when we removed it, we should have given the people alternative usage for the subsidy,” he said.
According to Obi, the resources recovered from subsidy removal have not been adequately managed, alleging that they were also being “mismanaged and stolen.”
“What we have today is that that removal and the attendant resources being recovered is also being mismanaged and stolen,” he said.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0