Boko Haram pays 500,000 Nigerian naira ($3,085, £1,835) to recruit Gang members

Boko Haram has shown that it can hit the Nigerian state in different ways: Bombs, village raids, school attacks and child abductions.

For now, Nigeria's neighbours are only dealing with the consequences of this violence.

But the prospect of the same violence spilling over is becoming more of a question of "not if but when".

"If they tell you to set off a bomb and it succeeds, if it kills a lot of people, they will pay you a lot of money," one of the gang members said.

"We are ready for that."

Boko Haram recruits members, not just from Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, it also gets recruits from Niger Republic who it pays 500,000 Nigerian naira ($3,085, £1,835) to those of us who followed them over there," one of the young men says.

"The rest of us, here, we give them information.

"When they come, we inform them about what's going on, what the security forces are up to."

However, their pay is increased should their bombs kill more people in Nigeria, the BBC has said.

The teens, when they are enlisted, are given Tramol [an opiate drug], marijuana and alcohol. They break into houses for cash; sometimes beat people for money, and steal their animals for food. They gather again for their opium and drinks.

Though the recruits, barely in their teens, do not like the sect and its activities, they said they took to violence as being students they have no jobs and are poor.

Taking us back to their hangout, they explained their association with the Nigerian militants.

Culled from BBC