How terror money flows freely across Nigeria

By Temi Salako

On 7th June 2026, bandits posted videos on TikTok live sessions displaying bundles of cash and openly taunting security forces. The broadcasts showed them armed, confident, and financially secure enough to perform for an audience. One video reportedly featured terrorists making a direct threat to President Tinubu and his family, demanding $50 million as ransom or threatening to carry out abductions in Abuja. What enabled this brazenness was not just weapons or safe havens. It was money moving freely through Nigeria’s banking system.

The National Counter Terrorism Centre disclosed in December 2025 that point-of-sale operators are knowingly or unknowingly facilitating ransom payments meant for terrorists. The mechanism is simple and devastating. Bandits provide victims’ families with POS operator account details. Victims transfer ransom directly to these accounts. The POS operators then withdraw the cash or transfer it onward. The terrorists get their money. Banks collect their fees. The system continues.

Between July 2024 and June 2025, at least 4,722 Nigerians were abducted across 997 separate incidents. SBM Intelligence calculated that kidnappers received a minimum of 2.57 billion naira during that period alone. That is one year. One year of ransoms flowing through the financial system while banks maintained compliance postures that somehow permitted these transactions to pass scrutiny. Some POS operators or bank accounts processed hundreds of thousands of naira with identifiable patterns of terror payments yet remained active.

The sophistication is escalating. Government sanctions documents from 2026 reveal individuals who moved funds in systematic, traceable ways. One financier handled over $200,000 in ransom payments for a single hostage release. Another managed a network moving tens of millions of naira through bank transfers. A third coordinated cryptocurrency payments and online fraud schemes alongside terror funding. These are not cash-in-hand transactions. These are banking activities. They leave trails. Banks see these trails.

The architecture of this system creates a vicious loop. Ransom payments fund weapons purchases. Weapons enable larger-scale abductions. Larger abductions generate larger ransom demands. Larger ransoms validate the business model. Insurgent groups do not hide this. They post their wealth on social media. They issue ransom demands in public videos. They conduct business as if accountability is theoretical. It is because, for them, it is.

The anti-money laundering framework exists. The Central Bank of Nigeria issues directives. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is mandated to investigate. Yet the National Counter Terrorism Centre confirms that investigations into kidnapping cases reveal ransom flows routed through financial channels with such frequency that officials describe it as systematic. Either compliance is inadequate or banks are choosing not to flag transactions that fit the profile of terror funding. Either possibility is catastrophic.

The long-term trajectory is now visible. Every year the system remains functional, the insurgency grows wealthier, more confident, and more brazen. Bandits who could once not appear in daylight now conduct live-streamed press conferences on social platforms. They issue demands to the presidency. They coordinate across states. They recruit and pay fighters using money that flowed through registered accounts. This is not theoretical risk. This is the current operating environment.

The Central Bank’s financial inclusion policies, while well-intentioned, created the POS infrastructure that terror networks exploited. Rural areas that lacked banking access now have POS terminals operating with minimal oversight. These same areas are where abductions occur and ransom negotiations happen. The technology that was supposed to democratize finance has become the payment system for extortion.

What should happen next is obvious. Banks must be held accountable for processing terrorist-linked transactions. The CBN must impose penalties on financial institutions whose anti-money laundering units fail to flag obvious patterns. POS operators whose accounts are used for terror financing must face criminal charges. Regulators must stop accepting explanations based on scale or frequency as though inevitability is an excuse for inaction.

The harder question is whether the political will exists to confront what this system reveals. Banks are powerful. They fund political campaigns. POS operators are now a constituency. Regulators answer to the same hierarchy that benefits from the chaos or tolerates it strategically. But the math is unambiguous. As long as ransom money moves through Nigeria’s financial system efficiently, insurgencies will remain well-funded, and the violence will escalate. The banking system is not a bystander to Nigeria’s insecurity. It is infrastructure.