Boko Haram Now Gives Loans to Youths as Bait for Membership

Senator Iroegbu in Abuja

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has disclosed that Boko Haram terrorists have now devised another means of recruiting unsuspecting youths into their fold through the offer of loan facilities.
The Director of Defence Information (DDI), Brig-Gen. Rabe Abubakar, in a statement wednesday, said the terrorists use the monetary inducement to recruit youth in the North-east
“In this clandestine dispensation, Boko Haram terrorists have resorted to providing loans to young entrepreneurs and artisans in the North-east as a way of inducing them for recruitment,” Abubakar stated.

He said: “The major targets of the unholy business engagement are youths in the North-east, especially the butchers, traders, tailors, beauticians and other vocational entrepreneurs who could be easily enticed with such loans without paying attention to sundry inherent dangers associated with the acceptance of such goodies from this satanic group or unfamiliar source.
“After such loans, the beneficiaries are given the option of either joining the group or risk being killed if they fail to pay the loan as at when due, whereas the payment has been surreptitiously programmed to fail by the benefactor, the Boko Haram.”

It is pertinent to state that having been effectively decimated and degraded, he added, the remnant or surviving splinter groups of Boko Haram are desperate to recruit more people into their ranks and files as a result of sustained onslaught against them by the troops.
The Defence spokesman advised members of the public, especially those in the North-east, to constantly be weary and conscious of various tactics of the desperate Boko Haram.

He urged them to be guided to avoid loan or financial assistance from non-conventional source but from conventional financial institutions such as banks, organised trade unions or institutionalised savings and loans establishments.
Acting otherwise, he warned, might lead to painful and untimely death from the blood-thirsty Boko Haram terrorists.