With recent revelations about the Obama and Biden administrations allegedly funding Boko Haram through USAID, if Nigeria truly wants to defend its territorial integrity and ensure internal security, the National Assembly must, without delay, pass a law requiring all Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Nigeria that receive funding from foreign governments, agencies, or individuals to declare such funds.
If they fail to declare such funds, their registrations should be revoked, and their licenses withdrawn. Any undeclared funds traced to them should be forfeited to the Federal Government.
If we do not take this step, Nigeria will remain vulnerable to external forces that use financial inducements to manipulate unpatriotic citizens into wreaking social havoc and undermining the government. Such activities weaken the moral fabric of our society, disrupt our cultural values, and create divisions and mutual suspicion among 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 amounted to ₦1.5 trillion.
The Lagos State Government built the best forensic laboratory in Africa, and that facility was burned to the ground after Nnamdi Kanu’s broadcast to his supporters, in which he instructed them to “burn Lagos to the ground.”
That forensic investment, along with other multibillion-naira public infrastructure—including eighty BRT buses, several courthouses, and police stations—was destroyed during the #EndSARS protests. This is why MohBad’s autopsy had to be conducted in America rather than Nigeria.
Furthermore, last year’s Days of Rage protest inflicted damage worth ₦200 billion on Northern Nigeria and nearly destabilized the country to the extent that Russian flags were paraded, instigating a Burkina Faso/Mali/Niger-style regime change in Nigeria.
Many foreign intelligence services are using religious cults and NGOs to further their interests in Nigeria. We must expose them by making the funding of these groups transparent.
We saw the nationwide destruction caused in Kenya during last year’s protests, which, according to President William Ruto, were funded by the Ford Foundation, a U.S.-based organization.
If we fail to learn from Congressman Scott Perry’s revelations about USAID’s alleged funding of Boko Haram, we risk becoming the next Kenya—or worse, the next Somalia.
If the National Assembly fails to act or delays addressing this issue, President Bola Tinubu may need to take inspiration from President Trump, the “action man,” and use executive orders to achieve this in the short to medium term.
It should be noted that in the United States, Russia, and China, NGOs cannot receive foreign donor funds without first registering with the government for that purpose. Therefore, those nations and others should not be allowed to do in Nigeria what they would not tolerate in their own countries.
The national mood is ripe for such an intervention. Nigerians would rally behind the President if he took decisive action. However, if action is not taken now, our people—who are notorious for their short memories—will move on to the next celebrity feud between Wizkid and his lesser-status Afrobeats rivals, who have repeatedly struggled to achieve Grammy recognition like the undisputed “001” of African music.
— Reno Omokri
