How to stop USAID and other foreign agencies from clandestinely funding terror and destabilisation in Nigeria
With the recent revelations about the Obama and Biden administrations funding Boko Haram through USAID, if Nigeria really wants to defend her territorial integrity and ensure her internal security, the National Assembly must without delay pass a law that all Non-Governmental Organisations in Nigeria that receive funding from foreign governments, agencies and individuals must declare such monies.
If they do not declare such funds, their registrations should be reversed and their licenses revoked. Any such funds traced to them will be forfeited to the Federal Government.
If we do not do this, Nigeria will continue to be vulnerable to external forces who use money to induce unpatriotic citizens to wreak social havoc and undermine our government through activities that weaken the moral fabric of our society, unnaturally change our culture, and create divisions and mutual suspicions amongst the various ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria.
#EndSARS was funded from abroad. Look at the damage it did to Nigeria. According to the private ratings firm, Financial Derivatives Company, the infrastructural damage to Lagos State alone was ₦1.5 trillion.
The Lagos State Government built the best forensic laboratory in Africa, and that facility was burnt to the ground after Nnamdi Kanu’s broadcast to his supporters where he instructed them to “burn Lagos to the ground”.
That forensic investment, along with other multibillion Naira public infrastructure, including eighty BRT buses and several courthouses and police stations, was razed during the #EndSARS protests. That was why MohBad’s autopsy had to be done in America rather than Nigeria.
And then last year’s Days of Rage protest inflicted damage worth ₦200 billion on Northern Nigeria, and almost destabilised Nigeria to the point where Russian flags were being paraded to instigate a Burkina Faso/Mali/Niger type regime change in Nigeria.
Many foreign intelligence services are using religious cults and NGOs to further their devices in Nigeria, and we must lift the veil on them by making the funding of these groups transparent.
We saw the nationwide damage done in Kenya during last year’s protests, which, according to President William Ruto, were funded by the Ford Foundation, based in the U.S.
If we do not learn from Congressman Scott Perry’s revelations on USAID’s funding of Boko Haram, we may end up being the next Kenya. Or even worse, the next Somalia!
If the National Assembly does not act or is dragging its feet on this matter, President Bola Tinubu may want to borrow a leaf from President Trump, the action man, and use executive orders to achieve this in the short to medium term.
Let it be known that in the United States, Russia, and China, you cannot receive foreign donor funds as an NGO without first registering with the government for that purpose. Therefore, those nations and others ought not to do in Nigeria what they will not tolerate in their homeland.
The national mood is right and ripe for such an intervention. Nigerians would be united behind the President if he took such action. But if it is not taken now, our people are notorious for their short memories. We will move on to the next beef between Wizkid and his lesser-status Afrobeats wannabe rivals, who have repeatedly suffered frustration in their quest to be Grammy-rated like the 001 of music in Africa.
By Reno Omokri
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. Ruffler of the Feathers of Obidents. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022. 21st Most Talked About Person in Africa, 2024.
