President Goodluck Jonathan has said that external forces may be funding Boko Haram and providing them with arms and ammunition in order to curb the socio-economic development of the country.
Jonathan made the remarks at the Seventh Joint Annual Meeting of the Economic Community of Africa (ECA), Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, and African Union (AU) Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance held in Abuja yesterday.
He said, “When you look at the characters that carry the weapons in the turbulent areas including the northern part of my country, you see a young person carrying an AK-47 rifle that is approximately more than $1,000 but the total sum of everything the person wears on his body, from the canvass to whatever he puts on, is not up to $50.”
He wondered: “Where is the money coming from that they are using to buy these expensive guns and very poor wretched boys carry these weapons to kill, destabilise the society, increase our problems in terms of economic development?
“Are there some external forces that don’t want Africa to grow that are providing these weapons?”
President Jonathan urged African governments to ”deepen our regional integration efforts and also to work towards a continental free trade area” and implored the continent’s leaders to find answers to “why is it that our economic growth is not being translated into job creation in the continent.”