A bill to establish an agency that would fully reintegrate repentant Boko Haram terrorists into the Nigerian society scaled its first reading at the senate on Thursday.
Entitled ‘National Agency for the Education, Rehabilitation, De-radicalization and Integration of Repentant Insurgents in Nigeria’ the legislation was sponsored by the All Progressives Congress (APC) member representing Yobe East Senatorial District, Mr. Ibrahim Gaidam.
The proposed agency, according to bill, would provide education for insurgents, rehabilitate, de-radicalise and reintegrate the repentant insurgents.
There were recent reports that the Nigerian military has a rehabilitation centre for repentant Boko Haram terrorists in Gombe State.
The centre, it was also reported had trained and rehabilitated over 1,000 insurgents since its inception over three years ago.
Although the programme for the rehabilitation began in 2016 it wasn’t until 2018 that the release of the suspects began.
It was further learnt that the repentant insurgents are trained in various professions like tailoring, mechanic and other skills.
The Borno State Government had also revealed that about 1,400 repentant Boko Haram suspects have been released by the military and rehabilitated into the society.
Recently, the acting defence spokesman, Brig. Gen. Onyema Nwachukwu said the federal government had, in 2016 initiated ‘Operation Safe Corridor’ to “de-radicalise repentant members of Boko Haram.
“It is not anything that is done haphazardly. The target audience is not those captured in combat. No!
“Those captured in combat are processed for prosecution, but the ones that have not been ideologically indoctrinated because they were conscripted; they were abducted are the ones being rehabilitated.
“They call them low-risk combatants. Those ones do not buy into Boko Haram agenda; they were forced into it.
“These repentant members have been assisting the military by providing intelligence on Boko Haram’s activities.”
