- Rehabilitation of insurgents who surrender is good, but …
In a rare show of magnanimity, the Federal Government has established a rehabilitation camp for Boko Haram members willing to renounce terrorism and are prepared to be rehabilitated and reintegrated back into the society. The Director of Defence Information (DDI), Brig-Gen Rabe Abubakar, who disclosed this in a press statement said the establishment of the camp was in line with the Federal Government’s commitment to the war against insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria. According to Brig-Gen Abubakar, the camp is a component of a military exercise code-named ‘Operation Safe Corridor’. Details about the camp would be made public later.
The initial reaction to this kind of initiative is to condemn it as unnecessary, given the havoc wreaked by Boko Haram insurgents in the last seven years. This is a sect that literally took the country to war, killing thousands of persons, Nigerians and foreigners alike, in the process. It had rendered many villages desolate, forcefully separated parents from their children and caused all manner of dislocations to the socio-economic fabric of especially the north eastern part of the country. The country and indeed the world is still waiting anxiously for good news about more than 200 innocent school-girls the insurgents abducted from their school in Chibok, in 2014. We cannot forget that the sect members also bombed several private and public places, including motor parks, markets, as well as the United Nations building in Abuja, among others, in their senseless war that lacks any discernible mission.
Although, in a sense, the rehabilitation of the insurgents brings back echoes of the Niger Delta amnesty initiative by the former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua administration, the issues are not exactly the same. In the case of the Niger Delta militants, one could at least say what their grievance was even if one disagreed with the vehicle through which they were fighting the cause. In the case of Boko Haram, however, no one can point at anything specifically as their cause beyond their improbable mission to Islamise Nigeria, a mission that was not shared even by many Islamic adherents who see their religion as one of peace.
But then, there is nothing wrong in seizing any opportunity to make peace because, even after some of the bitterest wars fought by man, the issues were sometimes resolved at the round-table conference. So, there is no reason for the military or the government not to embrace peace if insurgents are now ready and willing to lay down their arms. It is heartwarming that not less than 800 of the insurgents have so far surrendered in the last three weeks. This is something to cheer provided the insurgents are sincere.
While the military must ensure that the camps are well monitored and protected, the government must learn from the past mistakes in rehabilitation programmes. We have heard of insufficient funds for the camps because pledges are usually not fully redeemed; we’ve also heard of inadequate facilities like beddings, drugs, foodstuffs and congestion in the camps, etc. If the insurgents are prepared to surrender, they should not be tempted to want to return to their vomit due to unavailability of basic items.
The promised vocational training should be made available to the former insurgents so that they could be useful to themselves and be empowered to contribute meaningfully to the country’s economic development.
Above all, governments at all levels must be ready to take the bull by the horns by encouraging youths in the region to embrace western education, with a view to widening their horizon and making insurgency unattractive to them. We are seeing steps towards this in some of the states; we want to see more because no part of the country can be at peace when one part is perpetually under attack by extremists.
