Rafiu Oriyomi Ajakaye
10 February 2016•Update: 15 February 2016
By Rafiu Ajakaye
LAGOS, Nigeria
A university undergraduate believed to be recruiting fighters for Daesh in Nigeria, ahead of a training mission in Libya, has been arrested, said security officials Tuesday.
The Department of State Service said in a statement that Abdussalam Enesi Yunusa was arrested in the northwestern state of Kano on Jan. 17 following information about his "terrorist antecedents and covert drive to indoctrinate and recruit susceptible youths in the country".
"Prior to his arrest, Yunusa had completed arrangements to embark on a journey to join an ISIS [Daesh] terrorist training camp in Libya, with other Nigerians whom he recruited for the Islamic State," said the statement.
Police said Yunusa was an undergraduate student of the Federal University of Technology in the north central Minna town of Niger state where he was studying information and media technology.
The police claimed he was indoctrinated while studying there and that his recruits included Muhammed Rabi’u, Yahaya Momoh Jimoh and Zainab Sunday, a female.
Yunusa belongs to an extremist cell comprising of Ibrahim and Abubakar Ligali who are both undergoing terrorist training in Libya, according to the police.
"He listed Aminu and Ibrahim Jihadi (a citizen of Niger), as other ISIS agents operating in Nigeria and the West African sub-region. The cell was being funded by Abu-sa’ad Al Sudani, a media expert with the extremist group using Western Union money transfers to fund the terrorist cell agenda," it added.
The police said it had also apprehended members of a Daesh cell in the neighboring Katsina state and that suspects arrested in connection with the cell were being interrogated.
Nigeria has battled a Boko Haram insurgency since 2009, with tens of thousands of lives lost and over 2 millions displaced. Boko Haram has since pledged allegiance to Daesh, although security agencies are still trying to estimate how deep the relationship of the two groups is.
