No less than 559 former Boko Haram fighters have been freshly rehabilitated and reintegrated into the society through the federal government de-radicalisation, rehabilitation and reintegration (DRR) programme.
This is not the first time this will happen as Tracknews understands that over 1,000 ex-Boko Haram fighters have gone through the programme.
The rehabilitation is part of the Operation Safe Corridor which allows repentant terrorists to be forgiven, trained, rehabilitated and reintegrated into society and has been operational since 2015.
The latest batch of repentant terrorists had their graduation event on Sunday in Gombe State.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony, the coordinator of Operation Safe Corridor, Joseph Maina disclosed that members of the graduating class arrived at the DRR camp between July 15 and September 6, 2021.
During their time in the camp, they passed through various activities including medical screening, psychological and psychospiritual counselling, sports therapy, drug abuse counselling, western education and vocational training.
“Since September 2015, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari established the Operation Safe Corridor to encourage willing and repentant Boko Haram members to surrender and go through a well-structured rehabilitation and deradicalisation and reintegration programmes,” Maina said.
“This programme began effectively in 2016 by the committee constituted by the chief of defence staff to operationalise the mandate of the commander in chief.
“Consequently, personnel were drawn from the 17 services, ministries, departments and agencies to execute the concept of operation. Since the DRR camp became fully operational, a total of 1070 ex-combatants have successfully gone through the programme and have been reintegrated into society.
“This morning, another set of 559 class will be graduating from the programme and they too will be reintegrated back into their community subsequently.”
The Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor who was represented at the event by Major-General Adeyemi Yekini urged the graduating former Boko Haram members to remain law-abiding and responsible citizens.
He reminded them that the oath they swore to the federal government remains binding on them.
He said: “As you turn to your communities for your integration stage, I urge you all to brace up for the challenges ahead,” Yekini said.
“Some of you will encounter resentment and rejections in your communities but I can assure you, if you remember and practise everything you have learnt during the DRR programme, you will surmount these challenges.
“I urge you to go out there and be worthy ambassadors of Operation Safe Corridor by being law-abiding and responsible citizens.
“Finally, I want to remind you of the consequences of violating the oath of allegiance you have sworn. You must uphold the pledge to be loyal to the federal government at all times and shun all forms of violence and criminality.”
