Army: Boko Haram using doctored clips of lavish lifestyle for recruitment drive

The Nigerian Army says insurgents are using “doctored clips” showing lavish lifestyle to recruit individuals.

Onyema Nwachukwu, army spokesman, said this in a statement on Friday, and warned members of the public to be careful.

The development comes after the army said more than 100 insurgents have surrendered to troops within the past two weeks.

According to the army spokesman, members of the Boko Haram sect have resorted to using propaganda to lure people to join them, adding that the true situation among the insurgents is that of “hunger and disease”.

“Faced with the obvious reality of defeat and inability to carry out attacks that have hitherto been the strategy to assert relevance in the eyes of the public, Boko Haram Terrorists (BHT) have resorted to cheap propaganda in order to seek relevance. This of course, was as a result of the sustained and well-coordinated military bombardments from both Land and Air Components of Operation HADIN KAI (OPHK),” Nwachukwu said.

“This sustained operation has exerted so much pressure on the terrorists and their sympathisers, whose only available weapon now, is cheap and uncoordinated propaganda.

“In recent times, a good number of these terrorists have surrendered to troops in different locations across the theatre, a trend that indicates that they are losing the capacity to remain in the fight. Apparently, there are indications that their fighting capability has been severely encumbered by devastating depletion, with their remnants deserting various enclaves, leaving behind a few diehards that will undoubtedly be eliminated by the highly spirited troops of OPHK in no distant future.

“In a bid to replenish their fast-depleting fighting force and clandestinely conscript unsuspecting individuals to join their fold, BHT embarked on a subtle recruitment drive using the said propaganda video to portray a lavish lifestyle in their so-called fortress; a psychological strategy desperately deployed to attract impressionable youths and unsuspecting individuals.

“A cursory look at the video revealed an amateur work of doctored old clips and images from different backgrounds, skewed with blurred imageries that are incoherent and illogical. The incontrovertible reality is that the group is facing imminent destruction and extinction. Contrary to the false impression they attempt to project, of a blissful live in their enclaves, the true situation in their evil enclave is one of hunger, disease, brutality, high level of immorality and the constant fear of military offensives.

“This is largely responsible for the terrorists’ turning in their arms in droves as the gallant troops of OPHK are rendering their enclaves uninhabitable with fierce offensives. What the terrorists did not tell their target audience is that their fighters and family members are currently surrendering to the troops in multitudes, laying down their arms and renouncing their membership of the evil organisation and that they were misled in joining in the first place.”

Onyema added that many of the insurgents, who recently surrendered to troops, “lamented that the condition in their enclaves have become too harsh and completely unbearable that they had no option than to give themselves up”.