The Joint Task Force (JTF) in Maiduguri code named ‘Operation Restore Order’, yesterday said it has uncovered a new kidnapping tactic by suspected Boko Haram sect members, who now disguise as cab drivers and pick unsuspecting teenage girls to unknown destinations.
This follows reports that hundreds of insurgents dislodged from their enclaves in Sambisa forest and parts of northern Borno, have found their way back to Maiduguri.
In a statement issued to newsmen by spokesman of the JTF, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, the insurgents who now use taxi cabs, mostly Volkswagen Golf or Toyota Starlet with a driver and one passenger; also an accomplice, move around the town, soliciting for passengers along major roads and highways until they kidnap teenage girls.
“For instance, three teenage girls were at different times and places kidnapped in Maiduguri metropolis in less than ten days using this method. Luckily, all the kidnapped girls were rescued by the JTF and handed over to their parents,” it said.
This development introduces a new dimension to the activities of the sect who have been known in the past to rather kidnap dozens of affluent people for ransom.
The motive for their new found kidnapping of teenage girls has not been established yet but it might not be unconnected with using them as domestic and sex slaves as a search of one of the dislodged camp of the insurgents last month by Special Forces revealed a proliferation of used and unused male contraceptives.
