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.
According to Reuters, 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. “Boko Haram is tapping into the yearning of Nigerian youth to
get ahead in an environment of massive inequality,” said report author
and Mercy Corps peacebuilding adviser Lisa Inks.
“It is incredibly clever – either such
loans breed loyalty or Boko Haram use mafia style tactics to trap and
force young people to join them,” Inks told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
Six in 10 Nigerians live in absolute
poverty, on less than one dollar a day, a figure which rises to three
quarters of the population in the northeast of the country, according to
the latest statistics from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics.
Many young people told Mercy Corps they
would struggle without the support of powerful “godfathers” to provide
capital for their businesses, or cash transfers for equipment and goods.
Credit: Thisday
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