Nigeria sentences 44 people to hard labour for financing Boko Haram militants

Forty-four people in Nigeria have been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison for financing the jihadist militant group Boko Haram. The trials of 10 other people have been postponed, the country’s counter-terrorism agency said on Saturday. 

The defendants appeared before four specially constituted courts set up on a military base in the town of Kanji, in the central state of Niger.

The sentences ranged from 10 to 30 years, all with hard labour, a spokesperson said. Nigeria has been conducting mass trials for terrorism-related offences since 2017 and has secured convictions against 785, official sources say. 

Violent insurgency

Boko Haram's campaign of violence began in northeastern Nigeria in 2002 and has since spread to neighboring countries including Cameroon, Chad and Niger, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions. The strict Wahabbi group opposes the Westernisation of Nigeria, which it blames for the country corruption. 

Its tactics include suicide bombings and armed assaults, including an attack on the UN building in Abuja.

In 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in Chibok and burned down a government college, killing dozens of schoolboys who were trapped inside.