The Federal Government has issued a stern warning to Nigerian banks, financial institutions, and accounting firms, vowing to prosecute leaders and impose severe penalties, including heavy fines or closure, on any found complicit in terrorism financing.

This was disclosed by President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Daniel Bwala, in an interview on TVC.

Bwala stated that finance is the lifeline of terrorism, underscoring why nations across the globe, from the United States to others, prioritize the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing.

“We will look at banks that are collaborating with elements like that. We look at other financial institutions that are not banks as it were. We look at accounting firms that are involved in this money laundering. And then we look at our collaboration with our foreign partners,” he said.

“Any bank that is involved in that, one is that the headship of the bank will be prosecuted and the bank will either be fined or closed.”

He emphasized that terrorist networks frequently depend on formal financial systems both to facilitate ransom payments and to launder illicit funds.

“If a bandit demands ransom and they say that the money should be wired to them, it’s through where? Financial institutions. And we have laws that regulate that,” Boala stated.

Bwala stressed that,with US intelligence support now bolstering Nigeria’s efforts, anyone found aiding terrorist operations will face prosecution.

“In the coming days, we will know who terrorists are and who their financiers are.

“Once the government discovers that, either by way of investigation, by way of revelation, or by way of confession, because it can happen either of those ways, then judge us whether we are able to be firm or not. Nobody will be spared,” he noted.

He argued that a society is fundamentally undermined when certain individuals operate above the law.

This disproportionate application of justice, he explained, creates a deep-seated societal problem.

Bwala also issued a warning about intermediaries who pose as negotiators but ultimately become accessories to terrorism, emphasizing that the government is pursuing every available avenue to combat the financing of terror.

“This is where the problem is. A thin line between war against banditry and terrorism, and individuals who provided themselves as negotiators and become accessories to it at the end of the day. So, all of these things, there is no hard and fast rule. Government is opening,” he said.