Abuja, Nigeria - Nigeria's secret police said Monday that the extremist Boko Haram sect, blamed for scores of attacks including the August suicide bombing of UN headquarters here, has links to local politicians.
Police said they had exposed the connections after the arrest and questioning of an alleged spokesman for the Islamist group, which is believed to have various factions and aims.
There has also been intense speculation, particularly among Western nations, over whether the group has formed links with outside extremist groups, including Al-Qaeda's north African branch.
"His arrest further confirms the Service (police) position that some of the Boko Haram extremists have political patronage and sponsorship," secret police spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar said, referring to the arrest of the alleged spokesman.
The statement said that the suspect named as Ali Sanda Umar Konduga confessed he "was recruited by a political party stalwart in Maiduguri," the northeastern city where most of the attacks blamed on Boko Haram have taken place.
The police did not identify the political party involved.
They alleged that Konduga was the Boko Haram spokesman quoted in the news media under the alias Usman al-Zawahiri.
He was arrested on November 3. Police did not explain the delay in announcing the arrest.
Speculation has been rife over political links to at least certain factions of Boko Haram, which has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks, including an August suicide bombing of UN headquarters in Abuja which killed at least 24 people.
Such speculation has pointed to local politics in Borno state, where Maiduguri is the capital, or opposition to President Goodluck Jonathan in the mainly Muslim north.
The alleged confessions of Konduga seemed to involve mainly local politics.
Ogar's statement alleged that Konduga was "a former political thug," referring to the practice of Nigerian politicians of recruiting or forming local gangs to help rig elections.
The statement said one benefactor promised to pay him 10 million naira ($60,000, 45,000 euros) to work for his party, but then died on his way to deliver half the sum to Konduga.
Konduga claimed that a member of Nigeria's National Assembly then took over the running of his activities.
The statement also alleged that Konduga was behind threatening text messages sent to election tribunal judges with the aim of having the government in Borno state tossed out.
Other threats were made to politicians including former president Olusegun Obasanjo, the statement said.
It claimed that Konduga told security agents that threatening messages sent to the chairman of an election petition tribunal in Borno state "were scripted and relayed to him by the National Assembly member."
Konduga was briefly presented to journalists at secret police headquarters on Monday, as is often done following arrests in Nigeria.
He spoke in the Hausa language common throughout Nigeria's north, but those translating his remarks said he stated that he had been a student of former Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in 2009.
He was said to have admitted to having a phone conversation with a senator from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, but it had to do with a presidential panel set up to explore whether dialogue was possible with Boko Haram.
According to the translation, he claimed to have previously been a spokesman for Boko Haram, but said the sect now suspected that he may have informed on them.
Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009 put down by a brutal military assault that left hundreds dead and which left its mosque and headquarters in Maiduguri in ruins.
It appeared to go dormant for about a year before re-emerging with a series of hit-and-run shootings. Bomb blasts have become frequent and increasingly sophisticated in recent months.