As Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has earlier announced the plan to redesign Nigerian currency.
The Islamic State of the West African Province (ISWAP) Shura Council have stopped the collection of Naira as means transaction for their illegal tax that has always been collected from the farmers and fishermen.
It was of recent announced by the Central Bank of Nigeria about it’s decision to redesign N200, N500 and N1000 notes, which will kick off by December 2022 and by the end of January 2023, the old notes will not be valuable again.
It was gathered from the Crime Channels news page that the Federal Government’s moved concerning the change of these notes threw ISWAP population in the act of giving an equivalent of something received of lake Chad into confusion.
According to a Counter Insurgency Expert and Security Analyst in the Lake Chad region, Zagazola Makama, the insurgents switched to the West African CFA as currency of trade in the area.
ZagaZola said that the terrorists had also banned all Nigerian fishermen, herdsmen and farmers from sneaking into the Lake Chad through Marte, Abadam, and Gamborun Ngala in order to prevent the naira from reaching into the camps of the terrorists in the Lake Chad.
The ISWAP Militant Commanders in charge of taxes and levies, Ibn Umar and Malam Ba’ana, who forced the ban, said the people were only allowed to come through safe routes established by the terror group – Bulgaram, Cikka, Guma, Maltam, Doron Liman and Ramin Dorina villages in Cameroon Republic.
In exchange, ISWAP collects 1,500 West African CFA Francs, monthly taxes from the people who appear very willing to pay.
They have also secured trade routes for merchants, to enable them accesses foodstuffs, weapons, fuel and other logistics.
The Nigerian authorities are yet to react to the latest development, but there have been counterstatement from government that terrorists are not controlling any part of the country.
