Questions Swirl around Shadowy Fund Labeled ‘Security Votes’
By TruthNigeria Staff
(Washington, D.C.) A Borno human rights advocate who told national tv reporters that $3.6 million reached Boko Haram to free 416 captives is now in detention,TruthNigeria has learned.
Arrested After the Broadcast
The Department of State Services arrested human rights advocate Samaila Ibrahim Kaigama in Abuja on Wednesday, hours after he appeared on Channels Television.
Kaigama, president of the Borno South Youth Alliance, said 5 billion naira — about $3.6 million — was paid for 360 women and children seized from Ngoshe, in Gwoza County on March 4 and repatriated by terrorists on June 6. The captives were seized when Boko Haram fighters overran a military position at Ngoshe on March 4, 2026.
Kaigama repeated the claim on Radio Now 95.3 FM, and alleged that Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, who represents Borno South, diverted part of the money.
Amnesty International has condemned Kaigama’s arrest.
The DSS agency has issued no statement. TruthNigeria’s calls and messages to its Abuja headquarters went unanswered.
What the Money Means
At 1,375 naira to the dollar, the ransom Kaigama describes comes to $3.6 million — about $8,650 for each of the 416 people freed. He says it came out of federal funds to fight terrorism called Nigeria’s “security votes.”
That is what turns a Borno dispute into a problem for Nigeria’s allies.Security votes are cash allowances paid to state governors and to the National Security Adviser for urgent security needs. The paper trail ends at the handover: no receipts, no itemized spending, no independent audit, no legislative review. Neither the Constitution nor any statute provides for the practice. Transparency International, which traced it to the years of military rule, reports that the Nigerian government spends as much as $670 million yearly on “Security Votes” — more than the combined budgets of the army, navy and air force.
Critics allege that the monies are often a “slush fund” for corruption. The alleged Ngoshe payment is roughly two percent of one year’s disbursement, small enough to vanish without leaving a line item anywhere.
No official is likely to confirm such a payment in any case. Under Nigeria’s Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act of 2022, paying ransom to free a hostage carries a minimum of 15 years in prison. Confirmation would not embarrass the government. It would describe a crime.
The Senator’s Answer
“I have never, directly or indirectly, acted as an intermediary between kidnappers and any government or private individuals,” Ndume said on Arise News this week.
By his account, Kaigama contacted him after the captors released a video ultimatum demanding 5 billion naira within 72 hours, attributed to Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). The Senator alerted the National Security Adviser’s office headed by Nuhu Ribadu, the DSS and the military, and passed on Kaigama’s information.
He grew suspicious, he said, when Kaigama pressed him to contribute, and cut contact after learning money was being collected from the captives’ families through a bank account. Ndume said he cannot speak for the government on whether a ransom was paid, restated his opposition to ransoms, and asked security agencies to investigate.
In 2011 Boko Haram spokesman named Ndume during an investigation.The secret police (SSS) said November 3, 2011 they had discovered links between Boko Haram and regional politicians after the arrest and questioning the group’s spokesman Ali Sanda Umar Konduga. Police alleged Mr Konduga was the Boko Haram spokesman quoted in the Nigerian media using the name Usman al-Zawahiri.
“His arrest further confirms the service position that some of the Boko Haram extremists have political patronage and sponsorship,” SSS spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar said.The statement also said Mr Konduga had been behind threatening text messages sent to judges and politicians, which he said Mr Ndume had paid for. The senator was charged, denied it, and was discharged and acquitted in 2017. BBC News reported the news in 2011.
Two Accounts, No Paper
Two Borno academics with knowledge of events in southern Borno spoke to TruthNigeria on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case. Both said a ransom was paid. Both said they knew personally some of the nine men who carried the cash into the Mandara Mountains and surrendered their phones before the handover. The sources said the true total ran higher than Kaigama’s quoted figure – after intermediaries were paid.
“I personally know a ransom was paid, but the government has denied it, and Senator Ali Ndume has not confirmed it,” said the second source, a community elder. He knows the men who carried the money from Gwoza, he said, but they were barred from taking cameras, so no images exist.
The elder was skeptical of the wider claim. “He may have evidence that ransom reached Boko Haram, but he has no evidence that government money was sent to the terrorists,” the elder said. He credited Kaigama with one thing: obtaining the proof-of-life video confirming the hostages were alive.
TruthNigeria could not verify either account. The National Security Adviser’s office did not respond to requests for comment. The Borno State government maintains that no ransom was paid and that the captives were freed through intelligence-led operations
The Ngoshe Stakeholders Forum has publicly disowned Kaigama’s group, saying it never represented the community.
Why Washington Should Care
Claims that untraceable security-vote cash reached insurgents strike at the credibility of the office Nigeria’s allies depend on, said David Onyilokwu Idah, Director at the International Human Rights Commission in Abuja. The United States and Britain route intelligence sharing, training and assistance through structures the National Security Adviser coordinates.
“This money can be used to fuel corruption, because it is not accounted for,” Idah said.
Detaining the accuser while leaving the accusation uninvestigated, he added, tells Nigeria’s partners that transparency is negotiable.
Kaigama remains in custody without access to a lawyer. The National Security Adviser’s office has not addressed the funding claims. What credibility requires now, Idah said, is an independent accounting of any money disbursed in the Ngoshe case. The families of Ngoshe still have no official account of how 360 of their children came home on June 6. More than 50 of the children from Ngoshe are still hostages in the forest, according to Kaigama’s interview with TruthNigeria July 18.
According to TruthNigeria reporting, no fewer than 291 men, women and children are stranded in terrorist gulags in Borno, Kaduna, and Kwara, and none relieved by security forces or Security Votes, for months.
