The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) says 800 former Boko Haram fighters who surrendered to the military are currently undergoing deradicalisation for onward re-integration into the society.
Speaking on Monday during his appearance on Morning Brief, a
Channels Television programme, Emeka Onumajuru, chief of defence training and
operations, said about 129,000 Boko Haram fighters have been arrested so far
but only 800 were selected to participate in the rehabilitation programme.
“To get the numbers right, right now, (we have) about
129,000 surrendered BH (Boko Haram) members and their families,” he said.
“We are a professional army and when you are in combat and
an opponent surrenders, then you take him and let the legal processes take its
natural course.
“Right now, some of them are detention facilities, some of
them are in Kainji, and there is a special court that goes through all of them.
Those that were found culpable face the books and those that are going to be
deradicalised go through the process and this takes about a year.”
Onumajuru said it is possible to deradicalise terrorists and
reintegrate them into the society in one year.
“It’s possible because the deradicalisation is done by
professionals. That one-year period is sufficient enough depending on the
people handling the deradicalisation,” he said.
“The number taken in is not huge. As I said, we have 129,000
BH members and families. It doesn’t mean the 129,000 are going through the
programme.
”The people going through the programme right now are about
800 – in batches. Those 800 are people that have been sieved through the entire
legal process before they are now brought to the centre.
“The deradicalisation carried out by the Operation Safe
Corridor is part of the non-kinetic. You cannot win an asymmetrical war with
just a kinetic approach.”
He said kinetic and non-kinetic strategies must go
hand-in-hand for Nigeria to win the warfare against insurgents.
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