25th October, 2023
Surrender
By Yakubu Uba
Retired Brig.-Gen. Abdullahi Ishaq, the Special Adviser to Gov. Babagana Zulum of Borno on Security, has attributed the mass surrendering of Boko Haram insurgents to the State Government’s offer to receive and rehabilitate them.
Ishaq said this in a presentation titled “The Impact of Borno Model in the Fight against Terrorists in Borno”, at a public lecture organised by the University of Maiduguri on Wednesday in Maiduguri.
“I want to say without fear of contradiction that apart the fact that the insurgents have been degraded by the military, the window opened by the Zulum administration for them to surrender and the political will exhibited by the government has made many of them to surrender,” he said.
“The first batch of 35 insurgents who surrendered and received good treatment, encouraged others to also surrender, because of the reception given them.
”This included the governor’s visit to talk to them and this encouraged more others to surrender.
“That week I received over 1,500 of them who came out from the bush,” Ishaq said.
He added that the resolve by the people to accept those who surrendered back into society also facilitated their surrendering.
“They are happy to hear that the people of Borno are ready to forgive them,” he said.
Ishaq said that the death of the former leader of the group, Malam Abubakar Shekau and the supremacy fighting between the Boko Haram and the ISWAP group also created a wide division as many insurgents abandoned the fight saying it was no longer about ideology.
“Shekau’s death coupled with the fact that most of the diehard Boko Haram members have been killed in combat with the military and the in-house fighting made many mostly those conscripted to abandon the fight.
“Most of conservative or die-hard members of Boko Haram died of military action or in-house fighting; over 90 per cent of them are dead.
“Hence, many of those conscripted started coming out,” Ishaq said.
He lauded the military for working in synergy with security agencies in the fight against the insurgents .
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that over 100,000 Boko Haram/ISWAP fighters and their families have so far surrendered to troops in the state under the “Borno Model.(NAN)
YMU/ABI