By Achadu Gabriel, kaduna
Again, about 5,000 repented Boko Haram fighters have been reportedly reunited with their families, the Federal Government has revealed. The revelation is however trails by swift criticisms.
The National Counter Terrorism Centre, Office of the National Security Advisor, who made the revelation, said none of the former fighters returned to the battle ground after six months of the de-radicalisation programme.
Head of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE), Amb. Mairo Musa Abbas, stated this at the second-day session of the Lake Chad Basin Governors’ Forum.
Mairo, who spoke at the Third Penal on the theme, “Managing Boko Haram Exits and Demobilization of Armed Groups,” said harmonise strategy would help the governors of Lake Chad region to address their common issues.
She said de-radicalisation, rehabilitation and reintegration programme for ex-Boko Haram fighters, known as Operation Safe Corridor, had reintegrated over 5,000 repented Boko Haram into the society.
Mairo said, “Under Operation Safe Corridor programme, we have deradicalised over 5,000 ex-combatants of Boko Haram and reunited them with their families.
“They are using the skills they have acquired in the six months of deradicalisation programme in the camp, to sustain themselves within the communities.
“Our collaborators from the National Orientation Agency (NOA) are within 774 local governments in Nigeria and traditional & religious leaders within the community they have monitoring mechanism where are able to monitor this mechanism and see their progress after the reintegration within the community.”
She further said that the “Borno Model” a state-led strategy, which aimed at reintegrating individuals who left extremist groups like Boko Haram, had complemented the efforts of the Federal Government to promote peace in the country.
“We always said ‘Borno Model’ is a model of necessity but we have recorded a lot of success with the Model because many repented fighters, have been reunited with families,” she added.
Mairo, however, urged the governors in the Lake Chad region and stakeholders to harmonise their strategy to ensure that they work on the same level.
Brig. Gen. Mohamadou Ibrahim Baga Doma, Governor of Diffa Region, Niger had reportedly severely criticized Nigeria government for pampering insurgent by given them money in the name of rehabilitation and repentant.
Also reacting, a northeast based rights activist, Rev. K Ali Musa Dikwa, called on Nigerians to begins to asked and demand accountability on country leadership to publish names and photography of the reunited repentant Boko Haram insurgent, adding that there are deception in some of the information and allegations.
Accordingly, an Israeli country reps also allegedly kicked against the development, describing it as dangerous to their respective communities of the repentant Boko Haram returnees.
“We strongly oppose this ideology. How true have they repented and how did you ascertain this. We do not learn from our mistakes at all in this country.
“These are the people who killed thousands of citizens for no reason and will come back and say they have repented and they are reunited with their families. Why are supporting these evil men.
“The best is to send them to their graves as they did to others. Allowing them is dangerous to their respective communities. How are their community members whose relations were killed by them look at them? We are nursing another round of troubles because these same individuals will reorganize themselves and strike again. This is why crime on the rise.
‘Measures other than this is to publicly execute them to serve as deterrent to others who may be thinking of taking part in obnoxious behavior.
“We are not being fair to the society at all if truly integrating these set of wicked people into their communities”, it stated.
