Retired army General fingers nASCO group founder of terrorism financing

A retired Army General, Godwin Alabi-Isama, has linked the founder of NASCO Group, Ahmed Nasreddin in connection with terrorism financing in Nigeria.

Alabi-Isama who made the disclosure in an interview with TVC, said he learned about Ahmed Nasreddin and his role as a sponsor of the peaceful Izala movement during his time as an instructor at the military school in Jos.
According to the retired general, “Ambassador Wali wrote a letter to the chairman of the United Nations Counter Insurgency about Ahmed Nasreddin in Jos when I was an instructor at the military school in Jos. All students of military school went to training at Naraguta in Jos, I took them there, so we knew NASCO.”
Alabi-Isama, a retired Brigadier-General, was the Chief of Staff to the late General Adekunle (Black Scorpion) who headed the Commando unit of the famous 3rd Marine Commando during the Nigerian Civil War.
General Isama who is also the author of two books titled the tragic tragedy of victory in which he related his own account of the Civil War, an important event in Nigeria’s history; and How NASCO Founder, Nasreddin Helped Start a War, further declared: “We knew Baba NASCO ever since.
“It is true that he made a lot of money in Nigeria, but he was financing a peaceful Islamic group called Izala. Jama’atu Izalatul Bid’ah Wa’Ikamatis Sunnah (JIBWIS) is another name for it.
“But by the time they (Izala movement) got involved with the Algerian group, which is called GSPC. They were now saying pamphlet alone is not enough to spread Islam, it has to be pamphlet and conflicts and that was how Izala movement got to where they are now.”
He further added that “Baba Nasreddin was funding the Izala movement until he died in May 2021 at the age of 96.”
Giving insight on what people should know about GSPC, Alabi-Isama noted”David Hundeyin, a Nigerian journalist, wrote an investigative report called “Cornflakes for Jihad: the Boko Haram Origin Story.” which revealed information about GSPC.

He claimed that in the report, the name of the group called ‘GSPC’ is “Grupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat” (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat). It is an illegal Salafi terrorist group that is based in Algeria and is linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It provides training, money, and support to Islamists and jihadi fighters all over the world through a huge network of smugglers, money launderers, and rat lines across the world.
In October 2021, Nigerian journalist, David Hundeyin wrote a report called “Cornflakes for Jihad: the Boko Haram Origin Story.” It revealed how Nasreddin (the founder of NASCO) and Yakubu Musa Kafanchan, a friend of Nigeria’s terror-linked Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Pantami, funded Islamic terror groups.
People like Kabiru Sokoto, who led the bombing of a Roman Catholic church in Madalla, Niger State, on Christmas Day in 2011, that killed 37 people, are said to have been funded by Nasreddin and his allies in the West African Weekly report.
There were also rumors that NASCO’s late founder had secretly funded terrorism while being close to the government in Nigeria.
But in a swift reaction, the management of NASCO group in Nigeria in a statement, described the Alabi-Isama interview as “defamatory and slanderous content” that had been spread on online platforms. 
In the one-page statement sighted by Town Crier News, they said that the assets of the NASCO group and its late founder were not used to help terrorist groups in Nigeria and other places.
“Thousands of people and businesses around the world were investigated after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
“An investigation by the United Nations Security Council and the US Government found that the late founder of NASCO, Dr. Ahmed Nasreddin, and his business interests were completely free of all false accusations.
“There’s no doubt that NASCO wasn’t involved in any way with the sponsorship of terrorism anywhere in the world, said NASCO.
“National Intelligence Agency of Nigeria did a similar search and found the same thing, “exonerating our late founder and the NASCO group from any involvement in terrorist activities in Nigeria, as well as any other country.”