BOKO HARAM MEMBERS PLANS TO JOIN ARMY -DSS

The Department of State Services said in Abuja on Sunday that some members of the dreaded Boko Haram were already making plans to join the army.

It, however, said that two members of the sect, who it described as specialists in the making of Improvised Explosive Devise, had been nabbed before they succeeded in joining the army.

Spokesperson for the DSS, Mr. Tony Opuiyo, who stated this in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, said that the suspects were arrested in Kano.

He said, “In response to the regrouping of Boko Haram elements in Kano State, the Service in concert with the military, carried out coordinated operations in the state which led to the apprehension of two high profile members of the sect.

“They are Ibrahim Abubakar and Idris Audu. Audu is an IED specialist who was being groomed to penetrate security agencies in the country.

“Audu had already perfected plans to seek for recruitment into the next recruitment scheme of the Nigeria Army, before his arrest.”

He attributed the success recorded in the arrest of these two suspects to the secret police’s sustained tactical and counter-terrorism operations.

Opuiyo also said that the service on August 22 arrested one Samuel Asuquo, who was described as a kidnap kingpin, at Nasarawa Bakoko village in Cross River State.

He said that the suspect was the mastermind of the kidnap of three Australian staff of Lafarge Cement Company, for which his gang received ransom of N150m.

Similarly, he said that on August30, the trio of Bamaiyi Mustapha, Aminu Isa and Hassan Shehu, who he alleged were members of a notorious kidnap gang operating around the Abuja-Kaduna axis, were arrested at Lafia, Nasarawa State.

He said that the gang had earlier kidnapped five Igbo women and collected the sum of N13m as ransom, but added that the suspects were arrested by the Service while planning a high profile kidnap in Abuja.