Buhari Links Libya Slave Trade To Boko Haram

President Muhammadu Buhari has connected the prevalent slave trade of Africans, especially Nigerians in Libya to the deadly terrorist sect of Boko Haram.

The Nigeria’s President narrated how some Nigerians were kicked out of Libya in attempt by its citizens to oust  Muammar-al Gaddafi as their leader and some of these deported citizens ended up as Boko Haram recruits within Nigeria.

Gaddafi was alleged to have trained several immigrants from Sahel, including Nigeria on how to use weapons for the expansion of tyrannical rule which lasted for 43 years.

This trend continued as slave trade even after the end of Gaddafi’s rule.

At the Buhari’s meeting with members of the Nigerian community in Cote d’Ivoire on Tuesday evening in Abidjan the President was quoted saying:

“It was announced that 26 Nigerians died but before they could proved that they were all Nigerians, they were buried.
But the evidence I got from my Senior Special Assistant on Diaspora Affairs now is that only three were identified as Nigerians. But I won’t be surprised if the majority of them were really Nigerians.
For people to cross the Sahara Desert to go into shanty boats across the Mediterranean Sea, I think we will try and keep them at home.

“But for anyone who dared the desert and the Mediterranean without document to prove that he/she is a Nigerian, there is nothing we can do, absolutely nothing.

“In the interview some of you saw, some of the Nigerians said they were being sold like goats for a few dollars for years in Libya. Now after 43 years of Gaddafi where he recruited so many people from the Sahel including Nigeria and so on, all they learnt was how to shoot and kill. They didn’t learn to become electricians, plumbers or any other trade.

“So, when the Libyans stood against their leader, those who are not their people, they chased them out. A lot of them came back home with their workers, some of them participated in Boko Haram and become part of Boko Haram.”