Terror financing: US Congressman Perry lied — Ogebe

In a recent interview with Arise TV, International Human Rights Lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe debunked “the false and life-threatening allegations” by U. S. Congressman Scott Perry, who accused the U. S. International Aid Agency (USAID) of funding Boko Haram and other terrorist groups. Below is the interview transcript.

Charles Aniagolu: There’s been a rather strident reaction to the comments by the U. S. Congressman Scott Perry that the U. S. International Aid Agency known as USAID, has been funding the terror activities of Boko Haram in Nigeria. That reaction has come from the Washington-based international human rights lawyer, Emmanuel Ogebe, who is recognized in America as a global expert on Nigerian terrorism.

It was his testimony before the U. S. Congress in 2013 that strengthened the case that eventually led the Obama administration to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization. Mr. Ogebe says he was shocked to see Congressman Perry’s comments and that in his assessment the attacks on USAID are blatantly false and baseless.

Well, in a moment, I’ll be joined on the line from Washington by Mr. Ogebe, but first, here’s a short clip of him testifying before that U. S. Congressional Committee that was looking into designating Boko Haram a terrorist organization in 2014.

(U.S. Congress Africa Subcommittee hearing video clip)

Emmanuel Ogebe: Exactly six months after the administration announced the FTO designation of Boko Haram before this committee, Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok.

The world took notice, but so also did Al Qaeda, who condemned it, and so also did ISIS, who emulated it, and started abducting Yazidi and Christian women in Iraq. Eleven months after that, ISIS and Boko Haram established an alliance. Mr. Chairman, in June 2014, you visited Nigeria and at that time we were informed of over a thousand Christians stranded on Goza Mountain, facing starvation and snake bites.

By July, we saw on the news in the U. S. helicopters dropping supplies to the starving Iraqis besieged on the mountaintops, but we never saw the same for those in Nigeria. Mr. Chairman, a few weeks ago, I met a survivor from that mountain who just came down in April when Boko Haram attacked them there on the mountaintop.

Only about 300 of them are left. Like the Chibok girls, these people were cut off from our civilization by the terrorists for two whole years while the world debated what to do. This was the situation before the ISIS alliance and the spread of attacks to Niger, Cameroon, and Chad. Now, global perception of Boko Haram is determined by the watershed date of April 14, 2014.

I call it B. C. before Chibok and A. C. After Chibok. For illustrative purposes, the worst attack on the United Nations occurred in Abuja, Nigeria in the year 2011 BC before Chibok. But the UN did not impose sanctions on Boko Haram till 2014 AC. So it was the Chibok abductions that actually forced them to impose sanctions on Boko Haram, not the fact that Boko Haram had bombed the United Nations building several years earlier. (End clip)

Charles Aniagolu: Well, that’s the Washington based international human rights lawyer, Emmanuel Ogebe, testifying before a U. S. congressional hearing on Boko Haram in 2014. Mr. Ogebe is recognized in America as a global expert on Nigerian terrorism, and needless to say, he succeeded in what he set out to do there, because the United States did declare Boko Haram a terrorist organization. And Emmanuel Ogebe joins me now on the line from Washington. Thank you very much indeed for taking the time out of what we know is a very busy schedule for you to talk to us briefly because this chat that we’re having is about the Congressman, Perry who said that USAID was funding Boko Haram.

What’s your reaction to his comments that USAID has been funding Boko Haram in Nigeria?

Emmanuel Ogebe: Well, you know, let me be very clear that the congressman didn’t even mention Nigeria. He didn’t mention Jonathan or anything of the sort. He was just doing a rant, like most politicians would do, and just threw out names, and he said, “ISIS, Boko Haram,” and so on and so forth.

That is all. And you can imagine the controversy that has erupted over the words of a desperate, hungry politician seeking relevance in the eyes of Donald Trump. Let’s be very, very clear that these same demagogues had just made a claim that 50 million was given to Gaza and Hamas used it. $50 million worth of condoms was given to Gaza.

And Hamas used it as bombs. They actually said that.

And last week, Musk admitted in front of Trump that it was a mistake. So how these people can come and say money was given to Boko Haram by USAID and Nigerians believe them, beggars belief. These are confirmed liars who are already admitting that they lied.

Now, as you saw in that testimony in Congress, these members of Congress traveled to Nigeria to investigate these things before we designated Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization. So for somebody who is an armchair, you know, sycophant, to try and inflame things in Nigeria, that’s unacceptable.

Charles Aniagolu: Right, okay, well, that’s one perspective, but it begs the question, why do you think Congressman Perry made those allegations? I mean, what do you reckon is behind his comments? Because, I mean, they’re fairly explosive, aren’t they?

Emmanuel Ogebe: Yes, but there’s no factual basis for what he said. He didn’t even mention Nigeria.

He was just throwing out names of terror groups randomly. We need to understand the mindset of these people. The Republicans largely do not like aid to Africa. And so from his racist mindset, he’s trying to justify their not funding black people in Africa. And the best way you can do it is to lie that, you know, they’re funding terrorism.

Let me tell you something that happened to me. A white guy in my own church in America, about maybe 20 years ago said to me that USAID was spending money in Africa, teaching black men, how to rinse their penises after sex. And if not, that he was a Christian brother, he was visiting my house, I would have decked him.

But this is the kind of propaganda they’ve been using for years to try and cut off aid to Africa. What that congressman was actually implying is that any money given for madrasas, for Almajiri education is going to terrorists. So people don’t understand that he was indirectly calling black Africans terrorists.

Remember that Trump himself banned Nigerians from coming to the U. S. during his last term under the “Muslim ban” list. So this is how ignorant Americans, some of them, the majority of Americans, read or are literate at a fifth grade level or below. So some of these people are starkly ignorant. If you ask Perry today if Boko Haram is in Afghanistan, he will tell you, “yes,” he probably doesn’t even know that Boko Haram operates in Nigeria, and that’s what we’re having to deal with here.

Charles Aniagolu: I mean, you, make a point, you make an interesting point, because I think the, the issue about, um, the ignorance of a lot of Americans, well, ignorance about the rest of the world is fairly, um, well known, but the fact also remains that a member of Congress is not your run of the mill person on the street.

And you would assume that before they make those kinds of comments, I mean, he had documents in front of him, um, that he, there would have been, whatever he was saying was based on some research. I mean, you yourself are considered to be a global expert on Nigerian terrorism. The reason many people think Mr.

Perry’s comments may be credible is because it seems astonishing how Boko Haram was able to grow in just a few years. I mean, it must have been getting funding from somewhere either, you know, by default or direct.

Emmanuel Ogebe: You see, this is a major distraction because the reality of the matter is Boko Haram has received funding from the Middle East.

We’re aware about it. Boko Haram receives money from Nigerians. We’re aware of that. But you see, let me point out something. Last year, I exposed the fact that the CIA lied when they claimed that they rescued the Chibok girls in a book by a journalist called Liza Mundy. And it was very risky for me to stand up against the CIA to say, “you guys lied”.

Now, fortunately, the autobiography of President Jonathan concurred with my findings. The autobiography of a British prime minister concurred with my findings. And I said that to say, not everything that America says is true or should be believed. They too have hungry politicians seeking relevance. You say he’s a congressman so he knows what he’s talking about. Excuse me but that is not true.

Trump himself said that Hamas terrorists were using condoms as bombs. The whole president of the United States was proven wrong. He is a congenital liar. So when you see, you know, an ass kisser like Scott Perry saying things like that, take it with a grain of salt.

The second thing I did is I exposed that the United States conducted a military operation to rescue abducted Americans from Kaduna State.

I share this to say that there’s a lot that the American [00:11:00] government does that we never knew of.

Charles Aniagolu: Right, okay. I don’t mean to interrupt you there, but we’ve got to sort of move on fairly quickly. I mean, the point really is that beyond what Congressman Scott Perry said, there have been a lot of other people who are credible, former ministers in Nigeria, former You know, people who dealt with these issues, who to some extent have said, yes, there, there are grain elements of potential truth there, because, you know, some of these monies, you know, you can’t even get into the places where they’re sent to.

There have been investigations done by journalists showing that some of the monies that were given by U. S. aid to certain parts of Nigeria and other parts of Africa, they never monitored what the money was used for. And in some of those places, they were almost impermeable, it was impossible to get in there to do a [00:12:00] proper assessment of what their money was used for, it’s also an indictment, isn’t it, possibly, if it turns out to be true, of a sort of extended neo colonialism, when Western countries appear to still be trying to influence political and economic developments in Africa, but this time doing it indirectly through aid.

Emmanuel Ogebe: Well, I can tell you categorically, it is false.

It will never be proven. It was a talking point this man threw out. And unfortunately, because of his crass irresponsibility, he's endangering the lives of Americans in Nigeria, of Nigerian Southerners and Christians in the North, who people will wrongly assume are a front for these people. Now, let me actually be very, very firm about this.

If America wants to screw you up, they will screw you up badly. They don’t need [00:13:00] Boko Haram. Boko Haram has literally not succeeded in taking Nigeria after fighting for almost 20 years. So it’s, it’s kind of ludicrous to assume that the U. S. was trying to use Boko Haram to destabilize Nigeria and they have not succeeded.

They’ve been contained to a large extent where they are. What is happening is that there’s a global jihadi front. It is documented. It was even the U. S. after they killed Bin Laden and captured his documents. They found that Bin Laden sent three million dollars to Nigeria, to Boko Haram to fight. A lot of Nigerian politicians till today are in touch with Boko Haram and abet Boko Haram.

And we all know this. So this is really, I mean, a humongous distraction and unfortunately, you know, it endangers people. There is no one with any shred of evidence that can establish this. Let me add one last point here.

Very briefly.

I was the head of a U. S. donor agency in Nigeria and after my [00:14:00]tenure, The United States government sent an accountant from the U.S. to Nigeria to audit my entire one year tenure. So I know how U. S. funds are managed, how strictly they are managed. The fact that some U. S. contracts, USAID contracts are exorbitant is because it’s money for the boys. Like Nigerians, they give jobs to themselves and they make money off it. That’s where the inflation comes from, not that it is funding terrorism. That is not happening.

Charles Aniagolu: Well, okay. On that note, I want to thank you very much indeed. The Washington based international human rights lawyer, Emmanuel Ogebe, who is recognized in America as a global expert on Nigerian terrorism. Thank you very much indeed.