Human rights lawyer, Ogebe counters US Congressman claim of Boko Haram being funded by USAID

Emmanuel Isha Ogebe, a Nigerian lawyer based in Washington D.C, United States, has countered the claim made Mr. Scott Perry, a United States Congressman who alleged that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been funding terror groups, including Boko Haram, through its financial aid programmes.

News Band reported that Perry, who is a Republican from Pennsylvania, made this shocking claim during the inaugural hearing of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency on Thursday, February 13, 2025.

“Who gets some of that money? Does that name ring a bell to anybody in the room? Because your money, your money, $697 million annually, plus the shipments of cash funds in Madrasas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS Khorasan, terrorist training camps. That’s what it’s funding,” Perry said during a session, titled “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud”.

He criticized USAID’s expenditure on Pakistan’s education program, which reportedly amounted to $840 million over the past two decades. He specifically pointed to the $136 million earmarked for the construction of 120 schools, claiming there was no evidence these schools were built.

“If you think that the programme under Operation Enduring Sentinel entitled Women’s Scholarship Endowment, which receives $60 million annually, or the Young Women Lead, which gets about $5 million annually, is going to women who, by the way, if you read the Inspector General’s report, is telling you that the Taliban does not allow women to speak in public, yet somehow you’re believing, and American people are supposed to believe, that this money is going for the betterment of the women in Afghanistan. It is not.

“You are funding terrorism, and it’s coming through USAID. And it’s not just Afghanistan, because Pakistan’s right next door.

“USAID spent $840 million in the last year, the last 20 years, on Pakistan’s education-related programme. It includes $136 million to build 120 schools, of which there is zero evidence that any of them were built. Why would there be any evidence? The Inspector General can’t get in to see them.

“But you know what? We doubled down and spent $20 million from USAID to create educational television programs for children unable to attend physical school. Yeah, they can’t attend it, because it doesn’t exist. You paid for it.

“Somebody else got the money. You are paying for terrorism. This has got to end.”

But Emmanuel Isha Ogebe in a statement described Perry’s claim as baseless, adding that the attacks on USAID are merely to give a dog a bad name after hanging it.

He noted that as the topmost global expert on Nigerian terrorism to work with the US Congress which forced President Obama’s designation of Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on November 13, 2013, Perry’s allegations about USAID funding Boko Haram is blatantly false.

Speaking further in the state, Emmanuel Ogebe argued that if the U.S. govt was funding terrorism, his organization would know and expose it considering their level of involvement with the humanitarian organization.

He said, “I was shocked to see comments by Congressman Scott Perry that USAID is funding Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria. As the topmost global expert on Nigerian terrorism to work with the U.S. Congress to force President Obama’s designation of Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on November 13, 2013, I can confidently say this is blatantly false.

“Not only did I testify in Congress before the designation but I testified after the FTO as well to report to Congress that Turkish Airlines should be investigated when we obtained evidence of a cockpit recording where Turk pilots discussed arms smuggling into Nigeria.

“In addition, I traveled with multiple US congressional delegations to Nigeria on fact-finding missions over the years and in particular after meeting the widow of a policeman, who along with him and her sons had their throats slit but she survived, was directed by them to USAID for assistance. Unfortunately USAID did not provide her any assistance but myself and others contributed and built her a house. When one of her sons was discovered alive after 14 years, Dr Pastor Paul Enenche gave him a scholarship for several years now.

“More recently an American pastor asked me to assist him to exchange himself for the release of captive Christian schoolgirl Leah Sharibu. The Legal Attache of the U.S. Embassy meet with him to dissuade him from doing so saying it was against Nigerian law to engage with terrorists.

“Even when an American woman was kidnapped by Fulani bandits in Jos a couple of years ago, the U.S. did not play a role in paying her ransom due to their policy against such. It was my humanitarian colleagues who paid it. The U.S. prefers to send in their troops to rescue Americans than to give money to terrorists as they did in secret military operations in Sokoto and Kaduna disclosed previously.

“We have many concerns with USAID. Last year we asked them to assist us in delivering half a billion naira worth of medical aid we were donating to Nigeria but they declined. Upon reviewing the program report they shared with us, we saw that they had allocated $15 million for mosquito nets in the very state where we were providing humanitarian relief to. We requested details for it but they didn’t produce any before Biden left.

“We also noted that they claimed to have spent millions of dollars on peace-building in the state. We asked them whether the terrorists had ever attended any peacebuilding seminar.
The fact of the matter is that if U.S. govt was funding terrorism, we would know and expose it.

“Only last year, I exposed how a U.S. journalist lied that the CIA rescued Chibok girls from Sambisa in her new book “The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA” by Liza Mundy.

“I note further that indeed I raised concerns with the U.S. government when I served as their Country Representative to Nigeria 20 years ago that we had built houses for Bin Laden sympathizers. However they were ignorant almajiris and not terrorists and Boko Haram was yet to begin terrorism then.

“These baseless attacks on USAID are merely to give a dog a bad name after hanging it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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