The Nigerian Army on Sunday paraded two suspected recruitment racketeers, who had been posing as personnel, extorting potential recruits under the pretext to get them enlisted into the Depot Nigerian Army as recruits.
The suspects (names withheld), were paraded at the Depot Nigerian Army Zaria, Kaduna State, by Lt. Adekunle Adeyemi, the Acting Army Public Relations Officer (APRO).
“The attention of this noble institution has been drawn to activities of some fraudsters parading themselves in Zaria metropolis as military officers.
“These suspects indulged in defrauding unsuspecting potential recruits of their hard earned money.
“They use the social media and proxies to lure their victims to pay them money as inducement on the promise of assisting to get them recruited into the Nigerian Army,” the spokesman said.
Adeyemi said that the suspects were among the recruitment racketeers arrested on July 29 around Chindit Countermen by the Depot’s Military Police.
He said that their arrest was possible after some defrauded victims raised an alarm which led to immediate action that yielded positive result.
“The arrested suspects claimed to be working in collaboration with the duo of Abubakar Sadiq Musa and Lawal Bala Abdullahi whom they said paraded themselves to be military officers and lure unsuspecting victims for the syndicate.
“I want to state unequivocally that Abubakar Sadiq Musa and Lawal Bala Abdullahi who are currently at large were at no time officers of the Nigerian Army.
“The arrested suspects attested in their confessional statements to have so far defrauded no fewer than eight potential recruits to the tune of N1.3 million which was shared among themselves,” Adeyemi said.
The Army spokesman said that of the total amount extorted, only N163,000 was recovered from the suspects.
He assured that recruitment into the Nigerian Army was free and only possible through a transparent and rigorous process which started from completion of online registration form and subsequent screening processes at the respective states’ recruitment centres.
Adeyemi, therefore, called on the general public to be aware of the nefarious activities of fraudsters and resist the temptation of falling victims of fraudulent online social media platform that request for payment for easy enlistment.
Speaking to newsmen, one of the suspects claimed to be residing in Rigasa, Kaduna while the other one claimed to be residing around Isa Kaita Road area of Kaduna.
The duo, however, traded blame against one another, claiming that it was one that invited the other for the nefarious activities using a name of an army officer.
There had been reports both of them confessed to have been collecting N250,000 from each of their victims for possible enlistment into the Nigerian Army.