THE Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, has disclosed that terrorist groups in Nigeria are increasingly turning to gold as a major means of financing their activities.
Speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday monitored by News Point Nigeria, the defence chief said terror financiers exploit sophisticated international networks and financial channels, making it difficult for authorities to immediately trace or prosecute them.
When asked to identify the primary sources of funding for insurgent groups, General Musa responded bluntly: “Gold. They try to circulate this money, and that is why it is important for us to be able to track these things.”
He explained that the gold-driven financing chain involves cross-border transactions, often backed by collaborators outside Nigeria.
This, he said, complicates efforts by security agencies and requires significant legal and international cooperation to tackle.
General Musa further highlighted how terror groups also devise local schemes to sustain their operations.
According to him, insurgents recruit individuals by providing them with motorcycles and assigning menial economic activities with the condition that proceeds be remitted into designated accounts.
“The local ones, what they do normally is that they try to employ a few individuals, provide motorcycles to them, something to do, and those are remitting funds daily into some account,” he said.
The CDS noted that while Nigerian security agencies are making progress in identifying and dismantling these financial structures, the involvement of external financiers complicates the process.
“The process is on. It has to do with a lot of legal issues, and because it has to do with international connections, some of them have funds coming from outside, we cannot do anything from within,” General Musa explained.
He stressed the need for robust collaboration between local agencies, regional bodies, and international partners to tighten surveillance on illicit financial flows.
He added that cutting off the financial lifelines of terror groups remains a critical step toward defeating insurgency.
