According to the Office of the National Security Adviser’s National Counter Terrorism Centre, at least 5,000 Boko Haram fighters who have repented have been reunited with their families.
After six months of the deradicalisation programme, it claims that none of the former militants went back to the battlefield.
The Head of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE), Amb. Mairo Musa Abbas, made this statement on the second day of the Lake Chad Basin Governors’ Forum.
A unified approach would assist the governors of the Lake Chad area in resolving their shared problems, according to Mairo, who spoke at the Third Penal with the theme, “Managing Boko Haram Exits and Demobilisation of Armed Groups.”
“Operation Safe Corridor, a deradicalisation, rehabilitation, and reintegration programme for former Boko Haram fighters, has reintegrated over 5,000 repentant Boko Haram into society,” she stated.
“We have deradicalised more than 5,000 former Boko Haram fighters and reconnected them with their families as part of the Operation Safe Corridor program.
“They are sustaining themselves in the communities by using the skills they learnt during the six-month deradicalisation programme in the camp.
“Our collaborators from the National Orientation Agency (NOA) are within 774 local governments in Nigeria, and traditional & religious leaders within the community can monitor this mechanism and see their progress after the reintegration within the community,” she said.
“Borno Model,” a state-led plan that tried to reintegrate those who left extremist groups like Boko Haram, she added, has complemented the Nigerian government’s efforts to create peace in the nation.
“We have achieved a lot of success with the Borno Model, she continued, “because many repentant fighters have been reunited with their families, even though we always said it was a model of necessity.”
To guarantee that they operate at the same level, she urged the stakeholders and governors in the Lake Chad region to coordinate their strategies.
