Army uses imams and pastors to de-radicalise over 800 Boko Haram members who surrender

OVER 800 Boko Haram insurgents have laid down their arms and surrendered to the Nigerian military in the expectation of receiving a pardon under the government's amnesty plan known as Operation Safe Corridor.

 

Introduced by the government to encourage the terrorists to abandon violence, Operation Safe Corridor involves former insurgents being trained and re-integrated into society. According to the Nigerian Military over 800 members of the Boko Haram sect have voluntarily renounced their membership of the group under the scheme.

 

Acting director of defence information, Brigadier Rabe Abubakar made this known while delivering lecture during the Federal Capital Territory Correspondent Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalist workshop with the theme Media Military Relationship in the Fight Against Insurgency. He said the above number turned in between August 2015 and date, adding that it is those ones that the military will rehabilitate and de-radicalise using imams, pastors and government agencies.

 

Brigadier Abubakar added: “We have over 800 of them who surrendered to security agencies on their own. Those are the ones we are going to rehabilitate and de-radicalise in order to become responsible citizens of this country."

 

He pointed out that this is why they are employing services of both imams and pastors and other government agencies to help in reforming them at a camp in Gombe. He further said more than 10,000 Boko Haram captives have been rescued by the military and reunited with their families while others are taken to the internally displaced person’s camp.