About 5,000 repentant Boko Haram fighters have reunited with their families.
Disclosing this at the second-day session of the Lake Chad Basin Governors’ Forum on Thursday, Head of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE), Amb. Mairo Musa Abbas stated that none of the former combatants returned to the battleground after six months of the deradicalisation programme.
Mairo, who spoke at the Third Penal with the theme, “Managing Boko Haram Exits and Demobilisation of Armed Groups,” said harmonised strategy would help the governors of Lake Chad region to address their common issues.
She said deradicalisation, 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.
“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 and 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 said.
Amb. Abbas added 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.
She, however, called on the governors in the Lake Chad region and stakeholders to harmonise their strategy to ensure that they work on the same level.
