ICC Note: Reports suggest Boko Haram is offering business loans to poor Nigerians and then forcing them to join if they fail to pay the terror group back. In a country where more than half the population lives on less than one dollar per day, young entrepreneurs view small business as a tool for upward mobility. The militant Islamist group who has terrorized the country’s north in an ongoing seven-year insurgency offers a way out, but not without a price. Borrowing from Boko Haram can get you killed or enslaved to service in the ranks of Afirca’s most notorious persecutor of the Church. Boko Haram has gained a barbarous reputation for extreme violence in northern Nigeria and the Lake Chad region, subjecting populations, especially Christians, to murder, abduction of their wives and children, forced conversion, rape, and suicide bombing attacks.
4/13/16 Nigeria (defenceWeb) – Boko Haram has lured young entrepreneurs and business owners in northeast Nigeria to join the Islamist militant group by providing or promising capital and loans to boost their businesses, aid agency Mercy Corps said on Monday.
Seeing successful business ownership as a way to escape poverty, many Nigerian youths – ranging from butchers and beauticians to tailors and traders – accepted loans for their businesses in return for joining Boko Haram, Mercy Corps said.
Yet the lure of business support is often a trap, as those who cannot repay their loans are forced to join the militants or be killed, said the report from the U.S.-based aid agency.
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