613 low-risk, repentant terrorists who have been rehabilitated, according to Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Lucky Irabor, will be given to respective state governments for reintegration into society. Irabor revealed the information on Thursday in Abuja at the fifth Operation Safe Corridor (OPSC) Stakeholders’ Meeting.
The 613 clients are currently undergoing deradicalization and rehabilitation managed by the OPSC, according to the CDS, who was represented by the Chief of Defence Training and Operations, Maj.-Gen. Adeyemi Yekini. Prior to the release of the clients who had undergone rehabilitation to their state governments, he stated that the meeting would in-depth address the Deradicalization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DRR) Programme.
Irabor claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari created the OPSC in September 2015 as a platform for willing and repentant militants to give up their weapons and participate in a formal DRR program. Using the skills of over 17 services, ministries, departments, and agencies, the program, he continued, was a multi-agency and humanitarian operation that had the backing of friendly nations and local and international organizations.
According to the CDS, the achievements of OPSC have persisted in the area and in the diaspora, piqueing the interest of researchers from all over the world. Irabor advised the receiving state governments to give the ex-combatants the assistance they need to get through the difficult transitioning period in their life.
Irabor claimed that the Armed Forces had severely weakened the terrorist organizations Boko Haram and the Islamic State, confining them to a tiny area of the Sambisa Forest and isolated islands in Lake Chad. According to him, forces have continued to inflict significant fatalities on the groups and their leadership through regular and efficient air interdictions combined with well-coordinated clearance operations against positively identified enemy strongholds.
According to the CDS, the military has been using both kinetic and non-kinetic tactics to defeat insurgency. Maj.-Gen. Joseph Maina, the OPSC coordinator, stated that from the program’s inception in 2016, it has successfully processed 1,573 customers, including 1,555 Nigerians and 18 foreigners from Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.
According to Maina, all of the international customers had been returned to their home nations for reintegration. He added that five foreigners from Chad and Niger were among the 613 customers who were transported to the DRR camp on September 8, 2022, to begin training.
19 of the clients, according to the OPSC coordinator, have been moved to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital neurological facility for specialized psychiatric care. According to Maina, the purpose of the conference was to develop plans for the clients’ orderly transfer to their national and state authorities for reintegration following graduation in February.
In order to bring clients’ parents together and get communities ready to welcome them following deradicalization, the state has been working with OPSC, according to Mallam Bashiru Ahmad, Secretary to the Government of Adamawa. He explained that they were attending the stakeholders’ conference to consider what could be done to assure the program’s effectiveness and expressed confidence that the effort would produce the desired outcome.
Hajiya Zuwaira Gambo, the commissioner for women’s affairs and social development in Borno, stated that the state had received the majority of the remorseful terrorists since the program began. Gambo promised that even after the clients graduated from OPSC in Gombe, the state would still review them to make sure they were prepared for reintegration into their communities. She claimed that the military engagement was the only distinction between the OPSC and Borno models of deradicalization, noting that the Borno approach had a more conciliatory outlook.
She claims that the Gombe camp only permits family visits while the Borno camps enable the converted terrorists to live with their families. She urged increased assistance from the federal government and pertinent parties to help the state government accomplish its goal.
