FG to reintegrate 150 repentant insurgents into Yobe, Borno

The coordinator, Operation Safe Corridor, Major-General Bamidele M Shafa, said yesterday that arrangements had been concluded to reintegrate 150 repentant Boko Haram members into Yobe and Borno States on Saturday.

The coordinator stated this during a town hall meeting organized by the Presidential Committee on Northeast Initiative (PCNI) with traditional rulers, religious, community leaders and women civil society organizations in Damatur, Yobe State.

According to him, the repentant youths are mostly victims of circumstances who willingly surrendered themselves and embraced peace.

“Some of them I had spoken with said, it was at the point of killing their parents that they choose to join the group so that their parents can stay alive. Now, they have come out to embrace peace,” he said

On whether the repentant insurgents would go unpunished, he said, a judicial panel had been set up to administer transitional justice to know whether they joined Boko Haram deliberately or they joined it by compulsion.

“The panel would now confer on them forgiveness and then they will swore oaths that they would be law abiding citizens, to be responsible and good citizens of the country” he said.