When in 2018 the military established a camp to ‘rehabilitate and reintegrate surrendered and repentant Boko Haram terrorist members’ via an exercise known as Operation Safe Corridor (OPSC), many Nigerians, including retired and serving military personnel, expressed concerns about the dangerous gambit. An intergovernmental programme aimed at rehabilitating ‘low risk repentant’ Boko Haram fighters when the war had not ended made little sense. The fear was that these ‘repentant’ fighters could easily game the system by returning to the communities and reenacting their bloody orgies. Especially when then Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, admitted publicly that 10 years was insufficient to deradicalise an indoctrinated person.

Last week invasion of a police station in Maiduguri by Boko Haram insurgents to set free their colleagues earlier arrested over alleged drug offences, came as no surprise. If there is anything the hasty release of these ‘repentant’ insurgents has achieved, it is to boldly advertise the helplessness of the authorities. While we commiserate with the families of the dead, we hope that the authorities will take care of those injured in the attacks.

Official reports from the invasion point to careful planning by these renegades. According to the Police spokesman in Borno State, Kenneth Daso, on April 30, 2024 in a joint raid at the Kasuwar Fara, following an intelligence report that some drug peddlers, smokers, repentant and Boko Haram insurgents were indulging in nefarious activities, eight persons including a female were arrested with substances. But few hours after the arrest, some so-called repentant Boko Haram, dressed in military attire tried to invade the police station at Ibrahim Taiwo but were repelled. Thereafter, they went and attacked the Nigeria Immigration Service and NDLEA check points and burnt them.

Rehabilitating terrorists while the innocent victims of their brutalities reel in pains, is one of the most insensitive ideas implemented in the country. When it was revealed in 2021 that 603 ‘repentant’ Boko Haram insurgents who had completed the de-radicalisation programme would be reintegrated into the communities, we raised the alarm. In addition, we shared the misgivings of the neglected widows and other victims of the insurgency who queried the wisdom of the decision at the expense of the internally displaced persons (IDPs). We described as unconscionable the fact that the federal government would be expending huge resources on some ‘repentant’ insurgents while neglecting their victims. Indeed a former Senate Leader, Senator Ali Ndume condemned the policy outright. Ndume, who hails from Borno State and was then chairman of the senate committee on Army, alleged that most of the insurgents earlier integrated into the communities had gone back to their old ways. “Many among those released have since run away. They will never repent. The government should know what to do about them, but not reintroducing someone to you, who has killed your parents or your relations”, said Ndume. “This programme is unacceptable to our people. The right thing is to stop it forthwith.”

With thousands of displaced Boko Haram victims reportedly sleeping in the open and living in deplorable conditions in the IDP camps, we have always queried the idea of pampering those who put them in the situation they are in. We warned in this space that it would be impossible to hold a group of outlaws to any form of agreement. With many sophisticated guns in their possession, what would they do when they run out of cash?

Now that the ‘rehabilitation programme’ has blown up in the faces of those who conceived it, we hope that they can muster the courage to put an end to it. Hardened criminals should be put in their place – behind bars. (Daily Trust)

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