By and larger, reintegrating former Boko Haram can only succeed if it is part of a wider justice and reconciliation package — one that convinces, prepares, and equips communities to receive former fighters. Anything short of this is sure to fail as night
Operation Safe Corridor three years ago, when I visited the site at Mallam Sidi in Gombe. Their response was that dispersing former fighters to different communities will make it impossible to track them. Besides, what community will accept beasts that have killed thousands and thousands of their own people?
If there is one thing Nigerians of all walks of life – polarised as they are – are agreed on, it is to reject amnesty to former Boko Haram members, at least under the current conditions and circumstances. This public opposition is partly because government has failed to carry the country along on a programme it has been pursuing for over five years now. Furthermore, the programme continues to operate extralegally – if not illegally – as it is not supported by any law. The military coordinating it has no powers to detain and treat ex-terrorists. Their argument that rehabilitating ex-terrorists falls within the remit of military’s non-kinetic approach is judged to be unsound by most legal and security experts. I agree with them.
Only a comprehensive legal framework can address the myriads of questions Nigerians have and allay the fears of the affected communities. That is because it will painstakingly set out eligibility criteria for beneficiaries of the programme, define the rehabilitation programme they must pass through and set up evaluation, transparency and accountability mechanisms, among others. That is why I thought Senator Ibrahim Geidam’s bill on the matter introduced last year should have been considered for passage after being thoroughly debated and scrutinised. Alas, as with most important issues in Nigeria, the messenger was shot, with Geidam labelled as a terrorist sympathiser, and thus the message died too. The result is a haphazard programme based on nothing.
The second step needed, if we are to convince communities, is a scientific method of measuring the risk profile of beneficiaries before they are released back to communities. At it is now, Operation Safe Corridor cannot properly measure risk profiles at the point of enrolment or at any point through the programme. Those participating are simply released when their programme expires: the programme is currently driven by dates, not outcomes. In this arrangement, authorities have little or no evidence of the change to show communities and defend it.
Thirdly, rehabilitating ex-fighters, empowering and giving them starting capital while victims are abandoned in fear, poverty and with lifechanging injuries and destruction, is never going to work. Boko Haram attacks continue as millions of people remain in internally displaced peoples and refugee camps, leading to death of at least 170 children every single day. For this to work, the lives and livelihoods of families and communities ravaged by Boko Haram must first be rebuilt. Then, there is need for locally evolved healing processes that will allow ex-fighters to show remorse and seek forgiveness, encourage victims to forgive and then award community service sentences to the offenders.
By and larger, reintegrating former Boko Haram can only succeed if it is part of a wider justice and reconciliation package — one that convinces, prepares, and equips communities to receive former fighters. Anything short of this is sure to fail as night follows day. If the government insists on pressing on, it should do so in the knowledge that Governor Zulum’s warning that its policy will offend public feelings and carries the risk of “potential of civil rebellion” is not an alarmist threat. It is an articulation of the deepseated mood of millions of the victims of Boko Haram, some of whom have publicly threatened to execute any Boko Haram member that is taken back to them in the name of reintegration.
The Federal Government must work with the affected states and communities to chart a way forward on this extremely difficult question and Nigerians must be carried along. Rushing this is not in the public interest; rather, it will make an already bad situation worse.