The Presidency on Wednesday asked Nigerians not to reject

repentant Boko Haram fighters unless they want theterrorists to take up arms and resume terrorism from which they have repented

 

The presidency also dismissed as untrue, the insinuation

that the current administration had been absorbing repentant Boko Haram terrorists into the Nigerian military.  Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President

on Media and Publicity, said in a statement that none of the

601 former Boko Haram members who voluntarily laid down

their arms and had recently graduated from the Federal

Government’s de-radicalization and rehabilitation

programme, was going into the military.

“At the point of their graduation, a determination is made

that the former combatants have repented and are better

citizens, imbued with genuine nationalism. They must no longer represent a danger to society or to themselves. “Where they’re certified as such, communities have the

duty of accepting them.

Unless they want them to take up

arms and resume terrorism from which they’ve repented,

community leaders must work with the relevant agencies to

end their rejection,” Shehu said in the statement.

The presidential aide added that no serious leaders must

fall for fake news on repentant terrorists, stressing that "nobody has ever been absorbed into the military from the

de-radicalized Boko Haram and there is no such plan for

their absorption.”

He said the Muhammadu Buhari administration as a

responsible one was conscious of its duty to the state and

society, and to the victims of terror as well as to those who

inflicted these pains and losses on our people.

The statement read: “Now that groups with hitherto proven bona fides, some religious leaders and a few in thelegislature have joined the supply chain of fake news, it is important that we step in to clear the false reports that the administration is absorbing repentant Boko Haram terrorists into the military.

 

“None of the 601 former Boko Haram members who

voluntarily laid down their arms, and have recently graduated from the Federal Government’s de-radicalization and rehabilitation programme, is going into the military. This

is the fourth such graduation of repentant Boko Haram

fighters and not one of such graduates has been absorbed

into the military.

“The public needs to be reassured that the de-radicalization,

rehabilitation and reintegration of violent extremists of the Buhari administration code named ‘Operation Safe Corridor’,

follows an established example from countries with similar

experiences, and is supported academically and materially

by the European Union and the United Nations.

“The lead agency for the implementation of the programme

in Gombe is the International Organization for Migration, a

leading inter-government organization which is represented

in Nigeria.

“It’s also important to note that this programme does not

have a place for hard boiled, ideologically hardened terrorists. It only admits, after careful scrutiny, repentant

fighters that were captured and forced to bear arms in the

first instance, and there are many who have been drafted by

force”.