Recently, Nigeria called on the United Nations to investigate the funding and training of the Boko Haram terrorists. The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, made the call in a recent interview he had with Al Jazeera. Musa said there was an international flow of funding for the terrorists, stressing the need for the UN to come in to trace and track it. The defence chief, who questioned how the insurgents had sustained themselves for 15 years, also fingered international conspiracy in providing the terrorists with funds, training, and equipment. Daily Trust reports that the CDS’ call on the international community for an investigation came in the wake of a new trick by Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists, who are now deploying drones for surveillance ahead of launching attacks on security operatives.

Responding to a question on why Boko Haram has kept regrouping despite the claims by the federal government that the sect has been degraded, the CDS said: “The problem is that I think we have talked to the international community. Let’s find out the funding. As we speak, over 120,000 Boko Haram members have surrendered, and most of them came with hard currency. How did they get it? How are they funded? How did they get the training? How did they get the equipment? “The UN needs to come in because we need to trace the funding. It is an international flow, and we don’t have control over that,” he said.

When Boko Haram merged with ISIS and Al-Qaeda, I expected the Gulf States that are sponsoring ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Syria and Iraq to act to stop them in West Africa. It is on record that instead of ISIS and Al-Qaeda fighting in Syria and Iraq, they are now fighting in West Africa, according to Russian Television on good and bad terrorists. Now that ISIS and Al-Qaeda could not take their weapons to Syria and Iraq and they have used them against West Africa, Nigeria needs a new foreign policy to handle sponsors of terrorists.

Nigeria’s foreign policy needs to address the Islamic countries that sponsor Boko Haram, bandits, Lukarawa, and ISIS. Nigeria has become a colony of Islamic-funded jihadists like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and local bandits. Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, and Kebbi States have been forced to negotiate with foreign-funded bandits in northwestern Nigeria. Islamic jihadists like ISIS, Lukarawa, and Al-Qaeda are establishing local cell groups that we are calling bandits in the North-West. The fighting over control of Libya between Turkey and Gulf States is allowing illegal arms to flow to local jihadists in West Africa.

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I have waited for an Islamic conference on Boko Haram and other jihadists in West Africa. I have waited for the United Nations conference on Boko Haram. The dilemma of Sunni Muslims in West Africa is that Islamic countries funded jihadists like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, who are the militants that are killing and kidnapping them. Islamic countries funded jihadists have created ethnic bandits that are killing people across the Sahel of West Africa, according to Russian Television (RT).

The Islamic State in West Africa, or the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (abbreviated as ISWA or ISWAP), formerly known as Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād‎, “Group of the People of Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad,” and commonly known as Boko Haram until March 2015, is a jihadist terrorist organisation based in northeastern Nigeria, also active in Chad, Niger, and northern Cameroon. ISIS and Al-Qaeda are Sunni Muslim-funded jihadists who have supported local jihadist groups to fight in West Africa. This is the conspiracy of some Islamic countries to control and, if necessary, destroy some countries in West Africa.

Extremists are penetrating sub-Saharan Africa at an alarming rate, threatening states ill-prepared to deal with the resulting complex social and security challenge.

Sunni Islamic radical groups, which include Isis, Al Qaeda affiliates, and homegrown movements such as Boko Haram, threaten the continent—despite recent defeats at the hands of African armed forces. The encroachment poses unique challenges for policymakers and officials of shaky governments struggling with limited resources.

Jihadists have splintered into factions and spawned an offshoot aligned to the Islamic State group that has unleashed its own campaign of violence. Generally, there should be effective ways of monitoring the sponsorship of terror groups, which have become a serious threat to global peace. The world should move against such a country or group irrespective of its status.

I have watched with concern how ISIS and Al Qaeda have destroyed most parts of Nigeria, Mali, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso. The reaction from the international community is discouraging. There is a conspiracy and less international support for Nigeria to defeat Boko Haram. Boko Haram has grown to be the region’s most deadly jihadist group because of international conspiracy and sponsors. The Nigerian government claims that Boko Haram is “the West Africa branch of the world-wide Al-Qaida movement” with connections to al-Shabaab in Somalia and AQIM in Mali.

But in some ways, extremists have expanded their presence. Networks of Islamist militants now influence a vast area of Africa, drawing on contacts and resources from the Middle East and Europe, with radical groups exploiting ungoverned spaces throughout the continent. Extremist groups infiltrating sub-Saharan Africa often take a different approach to those drawing supporters in European or Arab cities. The militant groups in Mali and other places can easily find social empowerment by connecting to tribes or ethnic groups and making common interests with the community.

I have focused on the “rise” of jihad in the Sahel and the roles played by actors from the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia. Groups such as al-Shabab and Boko Haram are often portrayed as little more than extensions of the so-called Islamic State or al-Qaida, with struggles across the region seen as proxies in a global rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Inwalomhe Donald writes via [email protected]