On Monday, the Defense Headquarters (DHQ) revealed that 800 former Boko Haram fighters who had surrendered to the military were currently being deradicalized for later social integration.
The Chief of Defence, Operations, Maj. Gen. Emeka Onumajuru, made this known on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme.
One year, in his opinion, is enough time to reorient and integrate former terrorists into society as a whole. He claimed that despite the arrests of 129, 000 Boko Haram fighters so far, only 800 former Boko Haram fighters had been carefully chosen to participate in the Operation Safe Corridor rehabilitation and reintegration project.
Maj-Gen Onumajuru said, “To get the numbers right, right now, (we have) about 129, 000 surrendered BH (Boko Haram) members and their families.
When an opponent surrenders in a battle, the legal process proceeds naturally and we are a professional army.
“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. The deradicalization process takes about a year, while those who were found guilty face the books and those who are going to be deradicalized go through it.
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The top military officer questioned whether it was possible to deradicate terrorists and reintegrate them into society in a year. “It’s possible because the deradicalization is done by professionals. That one-year period is sufficient enough depending on the people handling the deradicalisation.
” 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. Around 800 people are currently taking the program, divided up into batches. These 800 people have gone through the entire legal process before being taken to the center.
He emphasized that Nigeria must use both kinetic and non-kinetic strategies to defeat insurgents in an asymmetric warfare.
Source: Channels TV
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