Stakeholders in Borno state have agreed to forgive and accept repentant Boko Haram members.
This decision was reached on Sunday during a stakeholders’ meeting organised by the state government and presided over by Governor Babagana Zulum.
The governor said the stakeholders’ meeting became necessary following the mixed reactions that recently trailed the mass surrender of Boko Haram fighters.
The federal government’s move to rehabilitate and reintegrate the repentant insurgents back into society triggered mixed reaction.
Zulum disclosed that apart from the 3,000 former insurgents currently in the custody of the government, another 900 have surrendered to Cameroonian forces.
At the end of the meeting, a communique was issued with conditions that must be met before the insurgents are accepted into various communities.
The 16-point communique was signed by Kaka-Shehu Lawan, Borno state commissioner for justice and attorney-general of the state.
Parts of the conditions is the “proper profiling of the repentant Boko Haram insurgents to avoid hasty release of hardening elements to the larger society.”
They also called on the Nigerian military “to sustain the ongoing offensive on the activities of ISWAP.”
The stakeholders demanded a periodic media briefing on the activities of the surrendered insurgents as a means of keeping the public abreast of developments, and that “all firearms and offensive weapons used by the insurgents be retrieved from them.”
