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.