Military to rehabilitate and empower repentant members

The Director of Defence Information, Defence Headquarters Brig.-Gen.

Abubarka made this known when he featured on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Thursday in Abuja.

``Nigeria being a signatory to UN conventions, we have to comply fully with that portion of convention.

``Even if you arrest or capture an enemy or prisoner of war, by international law, you are to treat him with all human dignity; you must do that, as long as you are a signatory to UN convention.

``We evolved a policy by the defence headquarter and that operation is called operation ‘Safe Corridor’.

``Operation safe corridor is an operation trying to rehabilitate, reintegrate, empower and de-radicalise those, who surrender and those, who are captured.

``It is not in any way amnesty. We are trying to comply fully with international best global practices and that is why we came up with that.

``The Chief of Defence Staff, Maj.-Gen. Abayomi Olonishakin with other service chief agreed to this and they came up with this, which is the first of its kind since the terror of Boko Haram.

``And very soon, we will have a camp somewhere in the North- East where they will be kept for empowering and reintegrating and de-radicalising them.’’

However, he said that the military was not in any way relaxing in finding out the sponsors of boko haram.

``We are not in any way relaxing in finding out those who are sponsoring but those who are really active in the insurgency are our first target.

``The recruitment style of this insurgency is extremely worrisome; we are doing all we can to ensure that we block them though programmes that we have evolved.

``It has gone a long way in making them to surrender.’’

Abubakar said that the military in 2015 came up with security operation that targeted the insurgency.

He said following the operation, a lot of boko haram members surrendered when they knew they would not be killed if they did so.

He said that insurgency was something that was unpredictable, boundless and transitional.

The director said that the military also came up with another operation called ``Operation Pulo Shield’’ in the Niger Delta.

He said the operation was aimed at ensuring total peace in the area.

He said that the military was re-strategising to ensure that it curbed the menace in the Niger Delta without inflicting pains on innocent masses.

He called on any aggrieved persons to channel their grievances though the right source and not through violence.

He said that everyone from the Niger Delta was in support of the activities of the militants.

According to Abubakar, all citizens are expected to have civic responsibility, and no nation can move forward through persistent violence.

He assured Nigerians of the military’s determination to ensure security prevailed in every part of the country.