Terror Financing Probe: Ex-Gen Ali-Keffi Exposes Links To Malami, Buratai, Top Officials
By: Abudu Olalekan
A retired general reveals how Nigeria’s anti-terror probe was crushed—after linking suspects to ex-AGF Malami, Buratai, Emefiele, and others. The $600M cover-up.
Retired Maj. Gen. Ali-Keffi wasn’t looking for trouble. In 2021, former President Buhari personally picked him to head Operation Service Wide—OSW, for short. A tight, multi-agency task force. Mandate simple: track Boko Haram’s money. Find the financiers. Dismantle the networks that kept the insurgency alive. He thought it was just another duty. He had no idea he’d stumble on threads that led straight to the top of Nigeria’s power structure.
What he found didn’t just shock him. It got him locked up. For 64 days. No charges. No trial. No explanation then, none now. Till today, he says, he still don’t know what offence he committed.
The trail started with bank records. The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit worked with OSW to trace cash flows tied to terror. By March 2021, they’d arrested several high-profile suspects. By September, they had a briefing ready for Buhari. Details so explosive, Ali-Keffi says even then, he knew some folks would rather bury it than act on it.
He says the then-NFIU boss, Modibbo Hamman-Tukur Ribadu, told him directly: two suspects linked to ex-Army Chief Buratai. Two more to former AGF Malami. One to ex-CBN Gov Emefiele. Even ex-Army Chief Yahaya was tied to a suspect.
“I ain’t accusing them of funding terror,” Ali-Keffi is quick to clarify. “But the links to the suspects? They were there. From business ties, Bureau De Change accounts that smelled off. Cover for something darker, we thought.”
Things went south fast after that briefing. October 18, 2021. He got summoned to Military Police HQ. Questioned for hours. Then detained. For 64 days. No charges. No hearing. Just locked up. Then compulsorily retired.
He tried petitioning President Tinubu for redress. Nothing came of it. Filed a case at the National Industrial Court. Months now. The court ain’t sat once. His lawyer suspects foul play—says court papers never even reached the army.
The mess runs deeper. He says Buratai once asked Ribadu to get him to release two suspects. He refused. Reported straight to Buhari, no names attached. Buhari told him flat: “You report to me and to me alone.” But the pressure didn’t stop.
There was the $600 million offshore account tied to a suspect named Aboubacar Hima. OSW alerted the U.S., and they froze it. Then someone acting for Hima offered $50 million to get Nigeria to tell the U.S. to unfreeze the funds. Ali-Keffi said no. But after he was detained? Nigeria did exactly that. Wrote to the U.S. to free the money.
OSW had evidence to charge 48 suspects with terror financing. But Ali-Keffi says he was pressured to downgrade the charges to money laundering. To hand the case to the EFCC—then run by Bawa, Malami’s relative. When a top prosecution lawyer refused to play along? She was removed. No explanation given.
After he was sacked and detained, OSW collapsed. All 48 suspects? Released. No charges. No trial. Warned not to talk to media, not to sue over their 9-month detention.
The craziest detail? OSW had a list. Over 400 targets. Including Boko Haram’s Abubakar Shekau. “We couldn’t arrest him,” Ali-Keffi says. “So we engineered what happened to him.”
He ain’t talking for fame. He’s talking because he says the truth got buried. And the men who helped fund the terror? A lot of them still walk free.
