Ali Tosho, leader of the Boko Haram Movement Nouakchott – Mohamed Abeidi Sharif The leader of a Nigerian Islamist movement, Ali Tosho, has told African Independent Television that “Mauritania is the country that transported the Boko Haram movement into Nigeria.” “Mauritanians hired Nigerians to help them overthrow the Mauritanian regime under Maaouya Ould Sid\'Ahmed Taya in 2004.” The leader of Boko Haram, the movement responsible for numerous violent attacks in Nigeria, revealed that the Nigerians received military training in Mauritania before returning to Nigeria and forming the movement’s armed wing.
The Afrique Online news agency confirmed that the Mauritanian government had reported a coup plot in August 2004 which planned to assassinate the Prime Minister, Maaouya Ould Sid\'Ahmed Taya, days before his official visit to France.
At the time, Mauritania said that 20-30 military figures were arrested in connection with the case.
The Afrique Online news agency believes that this was the incident that Tosho is referring to.
Ali Tosho said that “Mauritania, which does not have economic resource managed to export Boko Haram to Nigeria. Libya, which is resource rich, could export a group far more dangerous than ours.”
He added that Boko Haram “does not want to enforce Islamic law on all of Nigeria. We want to see it implemented only in the north.
He stressed the necessity of the Nigerian government building mosques and schools in the country’s Muslim North, and called on it to stop interfering in Islamic matters.