The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has announced that 800 ex-Boko Haram fighters who surrendered to the military are currently undergoing deradicalisation in preparation for reintegration into society.
Chief of Defence Training and Operations, Emeka Onumajuru, disclosed this on Monday, February 10, 2025, during an appearance on Channels TV’s Morning Brief.
According to Onumajuru, a total of 129,000 Boko Haram fighters have been arrested so far, but only 800 were selected for the rehabilitation program.
“To get the numbers right, right now, (we have) about 129,000 surrendered BH (Boko Haram) members and their families.
“We are a professional army, and when you are in combat and an opponent surrenders, then you take him and let the legal processes take their natural course.
“Right now, some of them are in detention facilities, some of them are in Kainji, and there is a special court that goes through all of them. Those that were found culpable face the books, and those that are going to be deradicalised go through the process, and this takes about a year,” he explained.
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Addressing concerns over the effectiveness of deradicalisation, Onumajuru asserted that it is possible to rehabilitate and reintegrate terrorists within a year.
“It’s possible because the deradicalisation is done by professionals. That one-year period is sufficient enough depending on the people handling the deradicalisation,” he said.
“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.
“The people going through the programme right now are about 800 — in batches. Those 800 are people that have been sieved through the entire legal process before they are now brought to the centre.
“The deradicalisation carried out by the Operation Safe Corridor is part of the non-kinetic approach. You cannot win an asymmetrical war with just a kinetic approach,” he added.
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