₦airaland Forum

jmoore:
Dude stop.
Any trained army can destroy hundreds of terrorists invading with motorcycles.

Stop defending the ineptitude of Nigerian government.

JuanDeDios:
These and other related facts have always been in the open. People just refuse to pay attention. It's the twenty-first century and human rights is not a footnote.

maasoap:
Explain now, we're listening.


Because we don't have attack helicopters before, this is the first time Nigerian government is going to possess attack helicopters for the military

Stephen0mozzy:
Nigeria, my Fatherland.

More power to the military!
More zeal to protect us against all forms of aggression.

God bless our Democracy.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

naptu2:
I created this post on November 14th, 2025.

WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHY? and HOW?

People have always been asking who, what, why, when and how. It has puzzled me because I can easily see the answers.

In fact, I consider people that ask these questions to be unserious people. They don't really want to know the answers, they just want to attack people that they hate.

People ask who funds the terrorists in the north? How do they get such sophisticated weapons? Why can't the Nigerian Armed Forces, which easily defeated Maitatsine, Liberian, Sierra Leonean and Biafran rebels and which has consistently been praised during UN operations, easily defeat the terrorists in the north? What exactly do the terrorists in the north want? Etc.

You see, the sponsors of the insurrection in Nigeria have always been known. They've been known from the beginning.

However, I realise that I have not written about them since 2016, so here is a summary.

1) Al-Qaeda:

Osama Bin-Ladin came from a wealthy Saudi family. His father owned a large construction company and had close ties to the Saudi Royal Family.

Osama attended many schools in the 1970s, but he left school in 1979 to go and fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He was one of the Muslim fighters that came from all over the world to fight against the Soviets. They received a lot of support from the CIA and that supported was routed through the Pakistani intelligence services.

Bin Ladin had a lot of money, so he created his own group that fought against the Soviets.

In 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, Bin Ladin offered to use his fighters to defend Saudi Arabia, but the Saudis turned to the US coalition instead.

Osama Bin Ladin was very angry that there were US troops in Saudi Arabia. He felt that it was a desecration of the Holy Land. The United States military set up barracks in Saudi Arabia (to fight the Iraqis) and Osama felt that they were living in sin in the Holy Land. He therefore dedicated his fighters/organisation to fighting against the US and expelling them from Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in New York in 1993. This was the incident that brought Al-Qaeda to public attention. They parked a bomb-laden Toyota mini-bus in the underground parking lot of the World Trade Center and set off the bombs.

I have told you that I woke up one day in 1998 to hear the crazy news that American embassies in Africa had been bombed. Al-Qaeda set off massive bombs in the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

In response the Clinton Administration bombed targets in Sudan and Afghanistan and gave Sudan a deadline to expel Osama Bin Ladin (it was later discovered that Sudan had already expelled him and the target that was bombed in Sudan was a civilian factory and had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. The owner of the factory sued the US Government and won).

In 2000 Al-Qaeda put bombs on a speed boat and used it to ram an American warship, the USS Cole, in a port in Yemen.

Of course everybody knows about the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

In 2003 Osama Bin Ladin made a broadcast in which he said that Muslims were being killed in certain countries and he called on Muslims to rise up against the governments of those countries. Nigeria was one of the countries that he listed (I have posted his 2003 message on Nairaland in the post, but I'm too lazy to go and look for it). Everybody thought that he was mad (he obviously was mad).

In 2009 Al-Jazeera broadcast videos of the killing of Boko Haram suspects in Nigeria. Osama Bin Ladin made another broadcast calling on Muslims in Nigeria to rise up against their government.

It looked like Boko Haram was finished after the Nigerian Government cracked down on them in 2009, but Al-Qaeda offered them money, weapons and training. Shekau, the new leader of Boko Haram, pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda and the terror group began an even worse series of attacks in 2010/2011.

2) ISIS:

Sadam Hussein was a member of the Bath Party, a socialist party that was popular in Iraq and Syria. Remember that I told you that the left does not emphasise religion? Well, religion was not important to Saddam Hussein. In fact, there was a funny and embarrassing incident that occurred when Saddam had to pray in public. He did not know the prayers (remember, Muslims are supposed to pray 5 times a day).

That's why you know that US officials were talking nonsense when they claimed that Saddam had something to do with the 9/11 attacks. Osama Bin Ladin and his crew hated Saddam. Many Muslim extremists believed that Saddam was used by the US to attack Iran during the Iran-Iraq War and they hated Saddam.

But anyway, the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and this brought in many foreign Muslim fighters that came to fight the Americans.

Some Iraqi Muslims also became militant and took up arms to fight the Americans. One of them was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He formed the Islamic State (IS). The goal of the Islamic State was to form a worldwide Islamic Caliphate. The group believes that it represents all Muslims, but in actual fact most Muslims reject them.

It has many branches and it us most known by the acronym of one of its branches Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

There was a split in Boko Haram. The son of Mohammed Yusuf, Habib Yusuf (aka Abu Musab al-Barnawi), said that Abbakar Shekau had become too extreme. He said that Shekau was killing Muslims and kidnapping children and that this was wrong. He said that Boko Haram's actions were unislamic.

Abu Musab al-Barnawi created a new group and pledged allegiance to IS. His new group was called Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). They get money, training, equipment and other forms of support from other Islamic State branches around the world.

I have been writing since 2011 that the terrorists in northern Nigeria are not trying to break away from Nigeria (as some thought back then), rather they are trying to take over the whole of West Africa (including southern Nigeria) in order to make it part of a global caliphate. Take note of the names of the organisations that I will mention in this post.

ISWAP fought against both Boko Haram and the Nigerian Army. Indeed, at the beginning, ISWAP almost destroyed Boko Haram.

ISWAP fighters cornered Abubakar Shekau (the leader of Boko Haram) and Shekau killed himself in order to evade capture. Many Boko Haram fighters switched allegiance to ISWAP.

The only thing that prevented Boko Haram from totally collapsing was the fact that it was receiving support from Al-Qaeda.

The other groups in this list are based in Africa.

3) AQIM:

This was one of those issues that I talked about quite often in the 1990s.

You see, the United States of America says that it is a great democracy and that it supports democracy all over the world, so why did this happen? (That's the question that I often asked people in the 1990s).

Africa was democratising in the 1990s. Many African countries that were either military dictatorships or civilian one-party states were embracing multi-party democracy. Algerian was one of such countries.

Like the others, Algeria had a major election in 1992. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win the election and I remember clearly that the United States and the Algerian Government did everything to frustrate the FIS.

It didn't work and Algerians overwhelmingly voted for the FIS. Then, suddenly, there was a (US-backed) military coup. The new military leaders imprisoned President Chadli Bendjedid (a former military officer who had been president since 1979) and banned the FIS.

(Imagine that! The US that is a beacon of democracy now supporting a military coup).

Obviously the coup was staged to prevent the Islamic party from gaining power via the ballot box. As a result, many armed Islamic groups sprang up.

Algeria was a mess in the 1990s. There were constant bomb explosions, fighting, etc. It kind of seemed like it faded out in the early 2000s, but then it reappeared during the War on Terror.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) evolved from one of those groups that fought the Algerian Government in the 1990s.

The Maghreb is basically the north-west region of Africa. It includes Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania and Western Sahara (aka Sahrawi Republic). AQIM is mostly active in Algeria, Libya and Mauritania.

Remember what I said about a global caliphate? AQIM leads Al-Qaeda's attempt to conquer the whole of north-west Africa.

AQIM has focused on kidnapping for ransom as a means of raising funds and is estimated to have raised more than $50 million in the last decade. This organisation is one of the main sources of support for terrorist groups in Africa. They provide support to Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabab in Somalia and JNIM in Mali (in fact, JNIM is an offshoot of AQIM). They provide money, weapons and training to these groups.

Since 2011 there have often been reports of "white men" being seen assisting Boko Haram militants and bandits in northern Nigeria. I have a strong suspicion that these "white men" are AQIM militants.


4) Al-Shabaab

This section basically contains summaries of many of my old posts. You can search for the original posts if you want more information.

I told you that East Africa was one of the venues of the proxy wars between the East and West blocks (Soviet Union vs the United States). Somalia was ruled by a dictator called General Mohammed Siad Barre. Somalia and Barre were backed by the United States/CIA.

Ethiopia was ruled by a dictator called Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam. Ethiopia and Mengistu were backed by the Soviet Union/KGB.

I've posted videos (on this thread) of Barre visiting Washington and meeting Reagan. I've also posted videos of Mengistu visiting Moscow and meeting with Brezhnev. I posted videos of Barre threatening Ethiopia, the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union and I posted videos of Mengistu threatening Somalia, the United States and NATO).

Somalia and Ethiopia had direct skirmishes, but most of the conflict was prosecuted using proxies. Somalia supported Ethiopian rebels and Ethiopia supported Somalian rebels.

The Cold War came to an end and the two superpowers stopped supporting their proxies. Siad Barre fled to Lagos when rebels were marching on his presidential palace and Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe when rebels were marching on his presidential palace.

The Ethiopians were able to manage the situation bettter than the Somalians..Eritrea peacefully broke away from Ethiopia after Mengistu fled. There have been a few wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea since 1991 and there have civil wars within Ethiopia, but the country has remained relatively stable.

Somalia has fared worse. There has been no country-wide stable government in Somalia since Barre fled in 1991.

As I told you, all the rebel groups that chased Barre away, started fighting against each other as soon as Barre left. Somalia became a country of warlords with each warlord controlling a section of the country.

I created several posts (and took over an entire thread) about the United Nations intervention in Somalia in the early and mid-1990s. This intervention ended in disaster when the UN and most especially the United States became embroiled in a war with one of the most powerful warlords Mohammed Farah Aideed. Firstly Pakistani troops were killed by Aideed's forces. US troops tried to capture Aideed, but this resulted in several US soldiers being killed and their bodies were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

This frightened the Clinton Administration which had promised (during the election campaign) that it would keep out of foreign wars. This was one of the reasons why they did not intervene in the genocide in Rwanda.

So Somalia became a lawless country and remained so throughout the 1990s, despite the efforts of the UN to restore order. Most of the UN backed governments had to operate from outside the country or from small parts of Mogadishu.

The Sharia courts in Somalia decided that the country was too unstable and unsafe. They formed an alliance, set up a military force and were able to take control of most of the country. This was in the early 2000s.


As I said earlier, there were several UN backed or internationally recognjsed governments of Somalia, but these governments either operated from outside Somalia or they only controlled small parts of Mogadishu.

Ethiopia (backed by the United States) decided to invade Somalia to install the Transition Federal Government all over the country.

The Ethiopians (supported by a small covert force of American soldiers) was able to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union and take over the country, but this immediately led to an insurgency. Jihadist groups began a massive terror campaign against the Ethiopians. The biggest of these groups was Al-Shabaab, which was created by some former fighters of the Islamic Courts Union and others.

Al-Shabaab was able to recapture much of the country from the Ethiopians and Americans. They inflicted severe losses of the Ethiopians through their bombing and terror campaign and the Ethiopians pulled out of Somalia in 2009. The Ethiopian presence in Somalia lasted from 2006 till 2009.

I have written that various international organisations and countries have tried to restore peace in Somalia. Well, it was time for the African Union to take up that role. The AU created the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a peacekeeping force that was to go into Somalia, take over from the Ethiopians and help the government to restore peace. AMISOM soldiers came from East and Central African countries (like Uganda and Burundi) and Nigeria. Al Shabaab began targetting the African countries that contributed troops to AMISOM. There were bomb attacks in Kampala, Uganda and Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. Al-Shabaab also began assisting Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Kenyan troops invaded Somalia in order to fight Al-Shabaab. They later integrated their troops into AMISOM. This led to one of the most infamous terrorist attacks in Africa. We monitores that terror attack live on Nairaland.

The Westgate Mall is one of the biggest shopping malls in Nairobi, Kenya. Al-Shabaab militants crossed into Kenya and attacked the mall. We could see videos and pictures that were taken by shoppers that were trapped inside the mall. The first people to respond to the attack were armed volunteers who lived in the neighbourhood.

People from all over Africa, especially Kenya, were on that Nairaland thread. Unfortunately the Somali super troll, Ayanle, was also on the thread

The issue with Ayanle (and his hundred accounts) was that he believed that Somalis were not black and that they were of a race that was superior to blacks (whom he called Bantus). So he would attack threads and completely derail them with his belief that Somalis were superior to blacks. He was a very virulent troll and nobody could stop him (he's probably the worst troll in Nairaland's history).

However, we stopped him on that day.

I was angry. People had just died, Kenyans on the thread werw worried and this Ayanle character was trolling them. I got the moderator to attack Ayanle. Ayanle went through many accounts (that's why you'll see many blank pages), but I was determined. After a while the moderator was also very determined and I didn't have to do anything again. For the first time in Nairaland's history, Ayanle was worn out. He stopped attacking the thread.

90 pages of live monitoring of the Westgate Mall attack by people from all over Africa.

Kenya Mall Under Attack From Islamic Terrorists (Pictures) 
https://www.nairaland.com/1448459/kenya-mall-under-attack-islamic


Al-Shabaab has received money, training and other forms of support from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Al-Shabaab has also provided training and other forms of support to Boko Haram. Boko Haram militants have been to Somalia to learn from and train with Al-Shabaab.

5) JNIM

I have told you about how the Malian jihadist group, Ansar Dine, took over large swathes of territory and this led to an international force being deployed to Mali to repel them. Boko Haram fighters were seen in Mali, fighting side by side with Ansar Dine militants. They kidnapped and ambassador in Mali and engaged in other terror attacks. They could be distinguished from other fighters because they spoke Hausa, rather than the local language.

You might also remember the 2016 attack on a hotel in Burkina Faso. An international conference was taking place there and rumours spread that Aliko Dangote was trapped in the hotel. However, Dangote denied that he was in the hotel and said that he could not travel to the conference. The attack was carried out by the Sahelian branch of AQIM.

Ansar Dine, the Sahelian branch of AQIM and other jihadist groups merged and created Jama'at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM).

JNIM has become one of the most powerful terrorist groups in West Africa. They have imposed a blockade of Mali and people cannot get petrol because of them.

There was a report last week (I don't know if it is true) that elements of JNIM were in Nigeria.


6) Other sources.

I have told you a lot about these other sources.

I told you that one of the reasons why Boko Haram hates the Navy Base on Lake Chad is because it affects their revenue. Lake Chad is a huge source of fish and Boko Haram taxes the fisherfolk. You must pay Boko Haram before you can fish. However, the Nigerian Military disrupts this source of funds and Boko Haram does not like it.

I told you about the time that Boko Haram invaded the navy base. They captured some naval ratings and executed them while filming the execution (they released the video to journalists. The Army came a few days later and chased them away.

In fact, in the early days, Boko Haram also engaged in bank robberies in order to raise cash.

They've also made money from kidbapping people and they also toll roads (you have to pay them before you can pass). They also tax people in areas that they capture.


Propaganda and spin

So ignore the propaganda and spin, Boko Haram was not funded by Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari, Sultan of Sokoto, APC, PDP, northern elders, etc. In fact, Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terrorists in the north would kill these people if they catch them. These things that I wrote above are the real sources of funds and weapons of Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terrorists in Northern Nigeria.

delpee:
Very informative reports. Thanks.

naptu2:
I wrote this on June 1st, 2021.

Aha! Time to look at the other side of the argument

I have often examined one side of the argument, but I'm not sure that I've examined the other side of the argument on this thread (maybe I have, but I can't remember).

You see, there's a problem in the war in the North-East and the Nigerian Air Force has proposed a solution (the Super Tucano) and the Nigerian Army has proposed a solution. I have often examined the solution that was proposed by the Air Force, now let's look at the Army's idea.

But first, before we look at the solution, we need to understand the problem. I will illustrate the problem by using 2 old videos that I have previously posted on this thread.



Video 1) US troops were operating in a valley in Afghanistan when they were pinned down by 3 snipers on the mountain. We can actually hear the sniper's bullet as it whizzes past. The American soldiers try to take out the snipers, but it is difficult because the snipers are on a vantage position.

The troops manage to injure one of the snipers, but are unable to do real damage (they are actually listening to the snipers' radios).

The ground troops had to call in air support. What I want you to note is the time it took the jet to get there. I want you to note the time period between when the ground troops called for air support and when the jet arrived to bomb the snipers.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDvugsSjI6s



Video 2) I've posted this video a long time ago and I posted it again recently. The video shows US forces mistakenly killing some Iraqi journalists and then also killing and injuring the people that came to help them. What I want you to note in this video is the loiter time of the aircraft.

Note that the aircraft was able to slowly fly around the mission area in a circle to identify moving targets, assess the result of its action and take out any targets that escaped its initial attack. Also note that, unlike the jet in the first video, this aircraft was able to remain over the battlefield for a long time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrCCmTY1Eo


Now here's the problem:

Ground troops in the North-East complain that it takes too long for the aircraft to show up when they request for air support. The Air Force also complains that their jets are too fast to properly engage the moving targets on the ground, they need to be refuelled often and so the jets can't stay over the battlefield for too long and the reason that it takes so long for the aircraft to arrive the battlefield is because the jets have to fly from proper air bases (Maiduguri or Yola Air Bases), while the helicopters are too slow to get there from far away Maiduguri and Yola.

I remember quite well that we used the Alphas as fighter-bombers in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but that was a different kind of warfare. The Alphas were bombing static targets like bases and so on in Liberia, while in the North-East we have to deal with small bands of moving guerrillas and insurgents.

The Air Force's solution to this problem is the Super Tucano. It's a turbo prop so it can land and take off almost anywhere (it doesn't even need a proper runway), it's a turbo prop, so it doesn't use as much fuel as the jets and therefore it can loiter over the mission area for a longer time and it can fly slower and attack the targets on the ground, assess the damage and attack again if necessary. It's also faster than the helicopters and can get to the mission area quicker.

That's the Air Force's solution. Here's the Army's idea.

The Army's idea met with enormous criticism and a massive debate. There are many people that agree with the idea and many people who are opposed. I'll give you both sides of the argument beginning with the Army's idea.


The Army wants to have. . .its own air wing.

The Nigerian Army believes that the solution to the problem is to have its own air wing filled with a fleet of helicopters. It believes that those helicopters should stay at the battlefront with the ground troops and that they should be able to provide support to the ground troops when needed.

The Army believes that having its own air wing will solve another problem, apart from the problems that I listed above. The ground troops sometimes need to be medically evacuated when they are injured. However, it often takes the medivac aircraft a long time to arrive and the Army believes that it would be better if these helicopters are at the battlefront with the ground troops (the troops would get the much needed emergency medical attention very quickly).

These helicopters, the army believes, will also be very useful for reconnaissance missions.


That's the Army's argument. What do the critics say?

1) The critics say that buying helicopters for the Army will be like buying helicopters for Boko Haram. They say that the Army wants the helicopters to be at the battlefront with the ground troops, but what happens if their positions are overrun by Boko Haram? That means that Boko Haram would now have helicopters!!!


2) The critics say that there is no need for an Army Air Wing. They say that the Nigerian Air Force already exists and that it is the job of the Air Force to provide air support. They say that creating an Army air wing will amount to duplication of functions.

3) I'm sure you've predicted this argument . Following from the earlier point, critics believe that the only reason that the Army wants its own air wing is to enable soldiers to steal money.

4) Some critics say that the Super Tucanos will solve the problems and therefore there is no need for an Army air wing.


What do you think?

Dogalmighty17:
As if the airforce will utilise them. The ones they got already how many times have they been used?

naptu2:
I wrote this on December 10th, 2025.

I'm going to use my childhood understanding to explain the difference between conventional warfare and asymmetric warfare.


1) Conventional:

This seemed kind of funny to me when I was a kid.

You'd read about some battles that were fought in ancient times and they seemed funny. Both armies would agree to meet on a field at a specific time and date. You would have two armies fighting against each other and civilians (especially women and children) would not be involved. There were rules of chivalry, etc.

Let's bring it to modern times. Conventional warfare is war between two armies in which, their positions (location) are known, their identities are known (they wear uniforms), etc. It's all about which army is stronger.

2) Asymmetric warfare:

Asymmetry means unequal. In asymmetric warfare, a smaller or weaker force is trying to fight a big and proper army. The smaller or weaker force knows that it cannot beat the bigger army in a face to face fight, so it uses unconventional methods. These unconventional methods include.

A) No uniforms:

There is no way of identifying the enemy. The enemy might be standing beside you but you won't know. The weaker force can easily blend into the civilian population and escape.

Everybody knows that Nigeria defeated the rebels in Sierra Leone, but do you know that there was one occasion that the rebels defeated the Nigerian Army? That's because the rebels used asymmetric warfare.

The Nigerian Army had total control of Freetown. I listened to an angry Nigerian commander on the BBC and although many years have passed, I'm going to do my best to quote him.

He said that he had warned his men about the civilians that often came into Freetown from a certain location. He told them that it was dangerous to allow people come in from there. But his men didn't listen because they thought that they were women and children and refugees. So what happened.

The RUF rebels had struck a deal with some members of the Sierra Leonean Army. Unarmed RUF rebels came into Freetown as refugees. Then, one day, some members of the Sierra Leonean Army, led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma, announced a coup and they were backed by RUF rebels that had snuck into the capital. They were able to expel the Nigerians from Freetown and encircle them at Lungi.

Freetown Airport is on Lungi Island and Nigerian Ecomog troops were restricted to Lungi and encircled.

I have posted many videos, pictures, etc of what happened.

In one of the videos that I posted, we saw rebels looking at NNS Ambe. They were trying not to show it, but they were afraid because they thought that it was NNS Aradu. It was NNS Ambe, a landing ship tank (LST), kind of like the C130 of the navy and it was there in case the Nigerians needed to evacuate, but the rebels thought that it came to attack them.

Anyway, that was the finest hour of Brigadier General Maxwell Khobe. He personally led the attack from the front. He was injured during the attack, but he refused to allow medics treat his wounds and told them to take care of other soldiers. Brigadier Khobe and his Nigerian Ecomog troops recaptured Freetown (the rebels could not defeat the Nigerians in conventional war) butthose wounds would get worse and eventually lead to his death months later (he died at St Nicholas Hospital, Lagos).

If Boko Haram, ISWAP or whatever they call themselves were to wear uniforms, gather at specific camps, etc like a regular army, then it won't take the Nigerian Army up to 6 months to defeat them.

B) No specific location:

I told you how the Nigerian Army defeated Boko Haram due to the surge during the Jonathan and Buhari era, yet Boko Haram fighters fled to Lagos (even Lekki here), Sokoto, Plateau and other places. Then, whenever they wanted, they would launch attacks in various parts of Nigeria. How do you fight such a scattered organisation?

I told you that the people of Kano hated Boko Haram, yet Abubakar Shekau was able to hide in Kano for a long time. Nobody knew who he was, he used a fake name and he was able to send message to fighters many miles away in Borno and the attacks were taking place in Borno while he was in Kano. It was only when the heat got too hot on Kano that he fled to Sambisa Forest.


C) Soft targets:

There are laws and rules that govern conventional warfare. You don't attack certain targets because it would be a war crime.

But these terrorists can attack anywhere. They pick the softest targets (bus stops, schools, churches, mosques, etc) that nobody would expect and you cannot defend against these attacks.

They also engage in hit and run attacks, which means that they will attack a place and run before the military arrive.

Dangers

One of the big dangers of asymmetric warfare is war crimes. I have written about this in both the Nigerian and American contexts.

It is very difficult to fight against such enemies and it could make conventional soldiers to do some things that they are not supposed to do.

For example, soldiers could kill civilians out of frustration (because the terrorists often hide among civilians).

Soldiers and policemen might end up profiling people and innocent people will suffer, etc.

Gotocourt:
In the documentary, Footsteps of Bin laden, Osama bin Laden's chief body guard said he fears attack helicopters, they lost 100 fighters in 1 minutes.
I hope the helicopters come with full packages, this Islamic fundamentalist groups have become toobold and needs to be fixed in their place.

onuman:
Attack helicopter for attacking and killing who? Killing Nigerians who either want their country of sharia criminal laws, or killing Nigerians who want to opt out of Nigeria after decades they yearned for political restructuring of Nigeria but were refused.
Otherwise, Nigeria has no external enemy.

naptu2:
I wrote this in June 2025.



Brazil - Tucano, Israel - Cobra

The Nigerian military was set up to fight conventional wars, it was not set up for asymmetric warfare. It needed equipment for counter insurgency operations, especially slow moving aircraft that had great loiter time for ground attack operations.

The Goodluck Jonathan Administration tried to buy Tucano war planes from Embraer of Brazil and Cobra helicopters from Israel. The US Government blocked both sales. Supporters of Goodluck Jonathan were livid. What was the US' business with our dealings with Brazil and Israel?

(This is one of the reasons that supporters of Goodluck Jonathan say that Barrack Obama was opposed to Goodluck Jonathan).

Actually, it all had to do with the Leahy Law.

Firstly, Cobra attack helicopters are made in the US and, as with most arms suppliers, the US has a say in who they are eventually sold to. I'll give you an example with Nigeria.

NNS Aradu was built for Nigeria by a German shipyard. I had a friend in the Navy who told me (in the 1980s) that the West Germans stated in the contract that we could not sell NNS Aradu to the Soviet Union. They stated that they would not sell even a rifle to Nigeria ever again if we sold the Aradu to the Soviet Union.

I believe it was because the Aradu was the first of the MEKO 360 ships and the Germans did not want the Soviets to get the MEKO technology.

So the United States sold Cobra helicopters to Israel and they had a say over who the Israelis eventually sold it to. The fact that the helicopters had US technology in them made them subject to the restrictions in the Leahy law. There's another reason which you'll see in the case of the Tucanos.

Embraer is a major Brazilian aircraft company and we wanted to buy the Tucano from them, but the US blocked the deal. Why and how?

Well, it's just like the sanctions that Nigeria imposed on South Africa during the apartheid era. Those sanctions had third party implication. It meant that Nigeria did not conduct business with any company or entity that conducted business with South Africa.

Embraer was negotiating a deal to sell Super Tucano aircraft to the US Air Force and US Marines. In fact, they had set up a factory in America to produce the aircraft and US Air Force officials had made some changes to the Tucano to produce the Super Tucano. That deal would have been cancelled if Embraer sold Tucano planes to Nigeria. Of course Embraer would make more money from the US than they would make from Nigeria and so they refused to deal with the Nigerian Government.

South African debacle

The GEJ Administration tried to get around the ban by loading a plane with cash and trying to buy arms on the black market, but the plane was detained in South Africa.

The reason for the sanctions

The sanctions were not against Nigeria in general or the Nigerian military. They were specifically against the Joint Task Force (JTF) in the North-East. They were imposed because of reports that JTF troops had detained people at random, they had detained people without trial for long periods of time, they had tortured people, etc. In fact, so many people had been detained that the detention facilities at Giwa Barracks were too full.


Trump

These sanctions were in place during the Jonathan Era and the beginning of the Buhari Era. They were the reason why some supporters of Goodluck Jonathan said that Barrack Obama was against GEJ. They led to some very interesting exchanges on social media.

Senator Leahy, who originally sponsored the law, condemned the Nigerian military. His supporters expressed surprise that the Nigerian Government and its supporters were against the Leahy Law. They said that the law was meant to guaranty human rights and everybody should support it.

Senator Leahy had an amazing exchange with Femi Fani-Kayode. The senator insulted the Nigerian Army and Femi Fani-Kayode insulted him. In fact, FFK wrote an article about Patrick Leahy.

SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS (SEASON ONE)
https://femifanikayode.org/senator-patrick-leahy-with-friends-like-this/

However, Donald Trump became president of the US and he often boasts that he is capable of making any deal work. He began working on a deal that would allow Nigeria to get the Super Tucanos. These were the elements of the deal that made it work.

1) The Super Tucanos that Nigeria would buy would be made in the United States, not Brazil. (This follows Donald Trump's idea that he is making money for the US and doing deals to benefit the US).

2) The aircraft can only be used in certain places (if I remember correctly, the aircraft can only be used in the North-East and North-West). This is to satisfy people like Patrick Leahy. There are other conditions that were put in place to ensure that the planes are only used against Boko Haram.

3) The deal includes training, ammunition and the upgrade of the air force base in Kainji where the Super Tucanos are based.

That was how Nigeria was able to get the Super
Tucanos. However, we have still not got the helicopters.

The helicopter request was upgraded from Cobra helicopters to Vipers. Negotiations are still ongoing (the former chief of air staff was in the US a few months ago to continue negotiations for the helicopters).

naptu2:
I created this post on May 14th, 2025.

And the ultimate problem and the ultimate solution to the problem in the North-East is still connected to the economic issues that we've been discussing in the past few years. ...

naptu2:
Now here is the problem that the Nigerian Army is facing at the moment.

There was a surge during the Jonathan Era and troops were deployed all over. But the problem is that we don't have enough troops!

Nigeria had the largest standing army in Africa after the Civil War. We had 200,000 men under arms after the war. I remember that people often boasted about this. . .but it was a problem.

Who would pay the salaries and allowances of all these people? Although we were in an oil boom, we could not afford to have so many soldiers, so Ibrahim Babangida was given the task of coming up with ideas to reduce the size of the Army.

naptu2:
I wrote this on June 1st, 2021.

Aha! Time to look at the other side of the argument

I have often examined one side of the argument, but I'm not sure that I've examined the other side of the argument on this thread (maybe I have, but I can't remember).

You see, there's a problem in the war in the North-East and the Nigerian Air Force has proposed a solution (the Super Tucano) and the Nigerian Army has proposed a solution. I have often examined the solution that was proposed by the Air Force, now let's look at the Army's idea.

But first, before we look at the solution, we need to understand the problem. I will illustrate the problem by using 2 old videos that I have previously posted on this thread.



Video 1) US troops were operating in a valley in Afghanistan when they were pinned down by 3 snipers on the mountain. We can actually hear the sniper's bullet as it whizzes past. The American soldiers try to take out the snipers, but it is difficult because the snipers are on a vantage position.

The troops manage to injure one of the snipers, but are unable to do real damage (they are actually listening to the snipers' radios).

The ground troops had to call in air support. What I want you to note is the time it took the jet to get there. I want you to note the time period between when the ground troops called for air support and when the jet arrived to bomb the snipers.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDvugsSjI6s



Video 2) I've posted this video a long time ago and I posted it again recently. The video shows US forces mistakenly killing some Iraqi journalists and then also killing and injuring the people that came to help them. What I want you to note in this video is the loiter time of the aircraft.

Note that the aircraft was able to slowly fly around the mission area in a circle to identify moving targets, assess the result of its action and take out any targets that escaped its initial attack. Also note that, unlike the jet in the first video, this aircraft was able to remain over the battlefield for a long time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrCCmTY1Eo


Now here's the problem:

Ground troops in the North-East complain that it takes too long for the aircraft to show up when they request for air support. The Air Force also complains that their jets are too fast to properly engage the moving targets on the ground, they need to be refuelled often and so the jets can't stay over the battlefield for too long and the reason that it takes so long for the aircraft to arrive the battlefield is because the jets have to fly from proper air bases (Maiduguri or Yola Air Bases), while the helicopters are too slow to get there from far away Maiduguri and Yola.

I remember quite well that we used the Alphas as fighter-bombers in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but that was a different kind of warfare. The Alphas were bombing static targets like bases and so on in Liberia, while in the North-East we have to deal with small bands of moving guerrillas and insurgents.

The Air Force's solution to this problem is the Super Tucano. It's a turbo prop so it can land and take off almost anywhere (it doesn't even need a proper runway), it's a turbo prop, so it doesn't use as much fuel as the jets and therefore it can loiter over the mission area for a longer time and it can fly slower and attack the targets on the ground, assess the damage and attack again if necessary. It's also faster than the helicopters and can get to the mission area quicker.

That's the Air Force's solution. Here's the Army's idea.

The Army's idea met with enormous criticism and a massive debate. There are many people that agree with the idea and many people who are opposed. I'll give you both sides of the argument beginning with the Army's idea.


The Army wants to have. . .its own air wing.

The Nigerian Army believes that the solution to the problem is to have its own air wing filled with a fleet of helicopters. It believes that those helicopters should stay at the battlefront with the ground troops and that they should be able to provide support to the ground troops when needed.

The Army believes that having its own air wing will solve another problem, apart from the problems that I listed above. The ground troops sometimes need to be medically evacuated when they are injured. However, it often takes the medivac aircraft a long time to arrive and the Army believes that it would be better if these helicopters are at the battlefront with the ground troops (the troops would get the much needed emergency medical attention very quickly).

These helicopters, the army believes, will also be very useful for reconnaissance missions.


That's the Army's argument. What do the critics say?

1) The critics say that buying helicopters for the Army will be like buying helicopters for Boko Haram. They say that the Army wants the helicopters to be at the battlefront with the ground troops, but what happens if their positions are overrun by Boko Haram? That means that Boko Haram would now have helicopters!!!


2) The critics say that there is no need for an Army Air Wing. They say that the Nigerian Air Force already exists and that it is the job of the Air Force to provide air support. They say that creating an Army air wing will amount to duplication of functions.

3) I'm sure you've predicted this argument . Following from the earlier point, critics believe that the only reason that the Army wants its own air wing is to enable soldiers to steal money.

4) Some critics say that the Super Tucanos will solve the problems and therefore there is no need for an Army air wing.


What do you think?

naptu2:
I created this post on November 14th, 2025.

WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHY? and HOW?

People have always been asking who, what, why, when and how. It has puzzled me because I can easily see the answers.

In fact, I consider people that ask these questions to be unserious people. They don't really want to know the answers, they just want to attack people that they hate.

People ask who funds the terrorists in the north? How do they get such sophisticated weapons? Why can't the Nigerian Armed Forces, which easily defeated Maitatsine, Liberian, Sierra Leonean and Biafran rebels and which has consistently been praised during UN operations, easily defeat the terrorists in the north? What exactly do the terrorists in the north want? Etc.

You see, the sponsors of the insurrection in Nigeria have always been known. They've been known from the beginning.

However, I realise that I have not written about them since 2016, so here is a summary.

1) Al-Qaeda:

Osama Bin-Ladin came from a wealthy Saudi family. His father owned a large construction company and had close ties to the Saudi Royal Family.

Osama attended many schools in the 1970s, but he left school in 1979 to go and fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He was one of the Muslim fighters that came from all over the world to fight against the Soviets. They received a lot of support from the CIA and that supported was routed through the Pakistani intelligence services.

Bin Ladin had a lot of money, so he created his own group that fought against the Soviets.

In 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, Bin Ladin offered to use his fighters to defend Saudi Arabia, but the Saudis turned to the US coalition instead.

Osama Bin Ladin was very angry that there were US troops in Saudi Arabia. He felt that it was a desecration of the Holy Land. The United States military set up barracks in Saudi Arabia (to fight the Iraqis) and Osama felt that they were living in sin in the Holy Land. He therefore dedicated his fighters/organisation to fighting against the US and expelling them from Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in New York in 1993. This was the incident that brought Al-Qaeda to public attention. They parked a bomb-laden Toyota mini-bus in the underground parking lot of the World Trade Center and set off the bombs.

I have told you that I woke up one day in 1998 to hear the crazy news that American embassies in Africa had been bombed. Al-Qaeda set off massive bombs in the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

In response the Clinton Administration bombed targets in Sudan and Afghanistan and gave Sudan a deadline to expel Osama Bin Ladin (it was later discovered that Sudan had already expelled him and the target that was bombed in Sudan was a civilian factory and had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. The owner of the factory sued the US Government and won).

In 2000 Al-Qaeda put bombs on a speed boat and used it to ram an American warship, the USS Cole, in a port in Yemen.

Of course everybody knows about the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

In 2003 Osama Bin Ladin made a broadcast in which he said that Muslims were being killed in certain countries and he called on Muslims to rise up against the governments of those countries. Nigeria was one of the countries that he listed (I have posted his 2003 message on Nairaland in the post, but I'm too lazy to go and look for it). Everybody thought that he was mad (he obviously was mad).

In 2009 Al-Jazeera broadcast videos of the killing of Boko Haram suspects in Nigeria. Osama Bin Ladin made another broadcast calling on Muslims in Nigeria to rise up against their government.

It looked like Boko Haram was finished after the Nigerian Government cracked down on them in 2009, but Al-Qaeda offered them money, weapons and training. Shekau, the new leader of Boko Haram, pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda and the terror group began an even worse series of attacks in 2010/2011.

2) ISIS:

Sadam Hussein was a member of the Bath Party, a socialist party that was popular in Iraq and Syria. Remember that I told you that the left does not emphasise religion? Well, religion was not important to Saddam Hussein. In fact, there was a funny and embarrassing incident that occurred when Saddam had to pray in public. He did not know the prayers (remember, Muslims are supposed to pray 5 times a day).

That's why you know that US officials were talking nonsense when they claimed that Saddam had something to do with the 9/11 attacks. Osama Bin Ladin and his crew hated Saddam. Many Muslim extremists believed that Saddam was used by the US to attack Iran during the Iran-Iraq War and they hated Saddam.

But anyway, the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and this brought in many foreign Muslim fighters that came to fight the Americans.

Some Iraqi Muslims also became militant and took up arms to fight the Americans. One of them was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He formed the Islamic State (IS). The goal of the Islamic State was to form a worldwide Islamic Caliphate. The group believes that it represents all Muslims, but in actual fact most Muslims reject them.

It has many branches and it us most known by the acronym of one of its branches Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

There was a split in Boko Haram. The son of Mohammed Yusuf, Habib Yusuf (aka Abu Musab al-Barnawi), said that Abbakar Shekau had become too extreme. He said that Shekau was killing Muslims and kidnapping children and that this was wrong. He said that Boko Haram's actions were unislamic.

Abu Musab al-Barnawi created a new group and pledged allegiance to IS. His new group was called Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). They get money, training, equipment and other forms of support from other Islamic State branches around the world.

I have been writing since 2011 that the terrorists in northern Nigeria are not trying to break away from Nigeria (as some thought back then), rather they are trying to take over the whole of West Africa (including southern Nigeria) in order to make it part of a global caliphate. Take note of the names of the organisations that I will mention in this post.

ISWAP fought against both Boko Haram and the Nigerian Army. Indeed, at the beginning, ISWAP almost destroyed Boko Haram.

ISWAP fighters cornered Abubakar Shekau (the leader of Boko Haram) and Shekau killed himself in order to evade capture. Many Boko Haram fighters switched allegiance to ISWAP.

The only thing that prevented Boko Haram from totally collapsing was the fact that it was receiving support from Al-Qaeda.

The other groups in this list are based in Africa.

3) AQIM:

This was one of those issues that I talked about quite often in the 1990s.

You see, the United States of America says that it is a great democracy and that it supports democracy all over the world, so why did this happen? (That's the question that I often asked people in the 1990s).

Africa was democratising in the 1990s. Many African countries that were either military dictatorships or civilian one-party states were embracing multi-party democracy. Algerian was one of such countries.

Like the others, Algeria had a major election in 1992. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win the election and I remember clearly that the United States and the Algerian Government did everything to frustrate the FIS.

It didn't work and Algerians overwhelmingly voted for the FIS. Then, suddenly, there was a (US-backed) military coup. The new military leaders imprisoned President Chadli Bendjedid (a former military officer who had been president since 1979) and banned the FIS.

(Imagine that! The US that is a beacon of democracy now supporting a military coup).

Obviously the coup was staged to prevent the Islamic party from gaining power via the ballot box. As a result, many armed Islamic groups sprang up.

Algeria was a mess in the 1990s. There were constant bomb explosions, fighting, etc. It kind of seemed like it faded out in the early 2000s, but then it reappeared during the War on Terror.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) evolved from one of those groups that fought the Algerian Government in the 1990s.

The Maghreb is basically the north-west region of Africa. It includes Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania and Western Sahara (aka Sahrawi Republic). AQIM is mostly active in Algeria, Libya and Mauritania.

Remember what I said about a global caliphate? AQIM leads Al-Qaeda's attempt to conquer the whole of north-west Africa.

AQIM has focused on kidnapping for ransom as a means of raising funds and is estimated to have raised more than $50 million in the last decade. This organisation is one of the main sources of support for terrorist groups in Africa. They provide support to Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabab in Somalia and JNIM in Mali (in fact, JNIM is an offshoot of AQIM). They provide money, weapons and training to these groups.

Since 2011 there have often been reports of "white men" being seen assisting Boko Haram militants and bandits in northern Nigeria. I have a strong suspicion that these "white men" are AQIM militants.


4) Al-Shabaab

This section basically contains summaries of many of my old posts. You can search for the original posts if you want more information.

I told you that East Africa was one of the venues of the proxy wars between the East and West blocks (Soviet Union vs the United States). Somalia was ruled by a dictator called General Mohammed Siad Barre. Somalia and Barre were backed by the United States/CIA.

Ethiopia was ruled by a dictator called Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam. Ethiopia and Mengistu were backed by the Soviet Union/KGB.

I've posted videos (on this thread) of Barre visiting Washington and meeting Reagan. I've also posted videos of Mengistu visiting Moscow and meeting with Brezhnev. I posted videos of Barre threatening Ethiopia, the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union and I posted videos of Mengistu threatening Somalia, the United States and NATO).

Somalia and Ethiopia had direct skirmishes, but most of the conflict was prosecuted using proxies. Somalia supported Ethiopian rebels and Ethiopia supported Somalian rebels.

The Cold War came to an end and the two superpowers stopped supporting their proxies. Siad Barre fled to Lagos when rebels were marching on his presidential palace and Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe when rebels were marching on his presidential palace.

The Ethiopians were able to manage the situation bettter than the Somalians..Eritrea peacefully broke away from Ethiopia after Mengistu fled. There have been a few wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea since 1991 and there have civil wars within Ethiopia, but the country has remained relatively stable.

Somalia has fared worse. There has been no country-wide stable government in Somalia since Barre fled in 1991.

As I told you, all the rebel groups that chased Barre away, started fighting against each other as soon as Barre left. Somalia became a country of warlords with each warlord controlling a section of the country.

I created several posts (and took over an entire thread) about the United Nations intervention in Somalia in the early and mid-1990s. This intervention ended in disaster when the UN and most especially the United States became embroiled in a war with one of the most powerful warlords Mohammed Farah Aideed. Firstly Pakistani troops were killed by Aideed's forces. US troops tried to capture Aideed, but this resulted in several US soldiers being killed and their bodies were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

This frightened the Clinton Administration which had promised (during the election campaign) that it would keep out of foreign wars. This was one of the reasons why they did not intervene in the genocide in Rwanda.

So Somalia became a lawless country and remained so throughout the 1990s, despite the efforts of the UN to restore order. Most of the UN backed governments had to operate from outside the country or from small parts of Mogadishu.

The Sharia courts in Somalia decided that the country was too unstable and unsafe. They formed an alliance, set up a military force and were able to take control of most of the country. This was in the early 2000s.


As I said earlier, there were several UN backed or internationally recognjsed governments of Somalia, but these governments either operated from outside Somalia or they only controlled small parts of Mogadishu.

Ethiopia (backed by the United States) decided to invade Somalia to install the Transition Federal Government all over the country.

The Ethiopians (supported by a small covert force of American soldiers) was able to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union and take over the country, but this immediately led to an insurgency. Jihadist groups began a massive terror campaign against the Ethiopians. The biggest of these groups was Al-Shabaab, which was created by some former fighters of the Islamic Courts Union and others.

Al-Shabaab was able to recapture much of the country from the Ethiopians and Americans. They inflicted severe losses of the Ethiopians through their bombing and terror campaign and the Ethiopians pulled out of Somalia in 2009. The Ethiopian presence in Somalia lasted from 2006 till 2009.

I have written that various international organisations and countries have tried to restore peace in Somalia. Well, it was time for the African Union to take up that role. The AU created the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a peacekeeping force that was to go into Somalia, take over from the Ethiopians and help the government to restore peace. AMISOM soldiers came from East and Central African countries (like Uganda and Burundi) and Nigeria. Al Shabaab began targetting the African countries that contributed troops to AMISOM. There were bomb attacks in Kampala, Uganda and Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. Al-Shabaab also began assisting Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Kenyan troops invaded Somalia in order to fight Al-Shabaab. They later integrated their troops into AMISOM. This led to one of the most infamous terrorist attacks in Africa. We monitores that terror attack live on Nairaland.

The Westgate Mall is one of the biggest shopping malls in Nairobi, Kenya. Al-Shabaab militants crossed into Kenya and attacked the mall. We could see videos and pictures that were taken by shoppers that were trapped inside the mall. The first people to respond to the attack were armed volunteers who lived in the neighbourhood.

People from all over Africa, especially Kenya, were on that Nairaland thread. Unfortunately the Somali super troll, Ayanle, was also on the thread

The issue with Ayanle (and his hundred accounts) was that he believed that Somalis were not black and that they were of a race that was superior to blacks (whom he called Bantus). So he would attack threads and completely derail them with his belief that Somalis were superior to blacks. He was a very virulent troll and nobody could stop him (he's probably the worst troll in Nairaland's history).

However, we stopped him on that day.

I was angry. People had just died, Kenyans on the thread werw worried and this Ayanle character was trolling them. I got the moderator to attack Ayanle. Ayanle went through many accounts (that's why you'll see many blank pages), but I was determined. After a while the moderator was also very determined and I didn't have to do anything again. For the first time in Nairaland's history, Ayanle was worn out. He stopped attacking the thread.

90 pages of live monitoring of the Westgate Mall attack by people from all over Africa.

Kenya Mall Under Attack From Islamic Terrorists (Pictures) 
https://www.nairaland.com/1448459/kenya-mall-under-attack-islamic


Al-Shabaab has received money, training and other forms of support from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Al-Shabaab has also provided training and other forms of support to Boko Haram. Boko Haram militants have been to Somalia to learn from and train with Al-Shabaab.

5) JNIM

I have told you about how the Malian jihadist group, Ansar Dine, took over large swathes of territory and this led to an international force being deployed to Mali to repel them. Boko Haram fighters were seen in Mali, fighting side by side with Ansar Dine militants. They kidnapped and ambassador in Mali and engaged in other terror attacks. They could be distinguished from other fighters because they spoke Hausa, rather than the local language.

You might also remember the 2016 attack on a hotel in Burkina Faso. An international conference was taking place there and rumours spread that Aliko Dangote was trapped in the hotel. However, Dangote denied that he was in the hotel and said that he could not travel to the conference. The attack was carried out by the Sahelian branch of AQIM.

Ansar Dine, the Sahelian branch of AQIM and other jihadist groups merged and created Jama'at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM).

JNIM has become one of the most powerful terrorist groups in West Africa. They have imposed a blockade of Mali and people cannot get petrol because of them.

There was a report last week (I don't know if it is true) that elements of JNIM were in Nigeria.


6) Other sources.

I have told you a lot about these other sources.

I told you that one of the reasons why Boko Haram hates the Navy Base on Lake Chad is because it affects their revenue. Lake Chad is a huge source of fish and Boko Haram taxes the fisherfolk. You must pay Boko Haram before you can fish. However, the Nigerian Military disrupts this source of funds and Boko Haram does not like it.

I told you about the time that Boko Haram invaded the navy base. They captured some naval ratings and executed them while filming the execution (they released the video to journalists. The Army came a few days later and chased them away.

In fact, in the early days, Boko Haram also engaged in bank robberies in order to raise cash.

They've also made money from kidbapping people and they also toll roads (you have to pay them before you can pass). They also tax people in areas that they capture.


Propaganda and spin

So ignore the propaganda and spin, Boko Haram was not funded by Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari, Sultan of Sokoto, APC, PDP, northern elders, etc. In fact, Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terrorists in the north would kill these people if they catch them. These things that I wrote above are the real sources of funds and weapons of Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terrorists in Northern Nigeria.

I seriously doubt if this kind of terrorist activities would have taken root during the military regime

I know about Maitasine and how it was decimated in less than a month after they had been operating for several months