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There is something almost uniquely Nigerian about discovering that a government agency is fake after it has been given an office, treated as official, populated with officials, recognised by other parts of government and, in one case, even found its way into the national budget.
Tinubu also ordered the immediate suspension of three permanent secretaries allegedly linked to the operation of the fake agency and ordered the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to conduct an investigation into its formation and operation.
What should have been a routine anti-smuggling enforcement - fake chassis number, alleged unpaid duty of N74 million on a vehicle valued at N298 million - turned into a full-blown constitutional crisis.
Boko Haram’s kidnapping-for-ransom (KfR) tactics exemplify the shift Lawson Akhigbe describes in his April 2026 article: modern Nigerian insurgencies as “grotesque startups” where cash flow, not conviction, sustains the beast. What began as opportunistic grabs for foreign hostages evolved into a sophisticated, multi-purpose revenue engine intertwined with ideology, propaganda, recruitment, and psychological warfare. Yet factional splits, territorial losses, and competition with purely criminal bandits have diversified and, in some ways, industrialized these tactics. This analysis compares Boko Haram’s (Jama’atu Ahl as-Sunnah li-Da’awati wal-Jihad, or JAS, under Abubakar Shekau’s legacy) approaches to its ISWAP splinter, to northwestern bandits, and to historical/contemporary parallels (FARC, Somali pirates, AQIM). It draws on evolution, methods, motivations, outcomes, and policy implications—highlighting nuances like gendered violence, government complicity, and the high human cost of “starve the beast” strategies.
In Nigeria, the legal framework explicitly criminalizes the payment of ransoms to kidnappers or terrorists.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 