A few more thoughts on ‘repentant’ Boko Haram members

Space did not allow me to finish the thoughts I started last week on how to handle the Boko Haram associates who defected recently. Since I last wrote, hundreds more, including at least one senior commander, have reportedly surrendered, and given the fears and opposition already being expressed from different quarters, there is much more […]

Space did not allow me to finish the thoughts I started last week on how to handle the Boko Haram associates who defected recently. Since I last wrote, hundreds more, including at least one senior commander, have reportedly surrendered, and given the fears and opposition already being expressed from different quarters, there is much more to say. Getting how to handle former terrorists right as it will shape the present and the future of the North East and Nigeria at large. I will add three key issues to the ones I highlighted last week, which I will start by recapping and addressing the new developments.

Firstly, I argued that describing Boko Haram members who are just leaving the bush as “repentant” is wrong, dangerous and contrary to the reasons for the recent exodus. Sources linked to Boko Haram claim that the defections are forced by continuing tensions between the group’s factions, leading to heightened insecurity, hunger and uncertainty in the “wilaya”. The military, meanwhile, says it is a product of improved military and intelligence efforts. In either case, it is clear that the departees were driven by practical, rather than moral, motivations. It’s, therefore, important to appreciate that they have merely “disengaged”, but not necessarily repented, necessitating proper de-radicalisation and rehabilitation of former members before seeking to reintegrate them.

The second point I raised was the centrality of communities for the success of any reintegration effort. As reintegration seeks to reinsert Boko Haram members back to the same communities that they devastated, populations must be convinced that the killers have changed and will never go back to their evil ways. Along with genuine remorse, regret and commitment by the offenders, government needs to put concrete steps in place to ensure that defectors cannot go back to Boko Haram, collaborate with them, or commit other violent crimes. Unfortunately, no such efforts are in place and rumours are rife that deradicalised and released Boko Haram fighters have been going back to the group or acting as its informants.

As if to showcase their community involvement strategy, the Nigerian army released photos of recent defectors last week. Standing before loads of food, ostensibly donated by the army, the ex-fighters carried placards with statements like “Nigerians, Please Forgive Us”, “Borno State Remains the Home of Peace” and “Forget Terrorism, Embrace Peace”. How can anyone seriously think that these placards will make a widow whose husband was slaughtered by Boko Haram, a father whose son was shot or children whose parents were blown up will just forgive, forget and accept the perpetrators back? Is this the atonement for terrorism or the best way to show regret and remorse? Moreover, the majority of families cannot afford foodstuff their killers were provided with. One doesn’t need to be a psychologist to see that this move will not produce the desired result.

The community’s opposition was echoed later in the week by Borno leaders and elders, including the Governor of Borno State and the Shehu of Borno. They recognised the need to allow defections if the war is not to be prolonged. But they argued that reinserting them into the same communities they attacked is impossible. Thus, the Shehu of Borno suggested that defectors should be relocated to communities far away from Borno after completing their rehabilitation programmes. This exactly is the suggestion I put to the management of 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 extra-legally – 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 life-changing 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 deep-seated 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.