‘800 repentant Boko Haram insurgents under CDS’ training’

More than 800 repentant members of Boko Haram are currently undergoing vocational skills training under the supervision of the office of the Chief of Defence Staff.

Director-general, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Sani Sidi, disclosed during a public hearing of a bill on the establishment of North East Development Commission (NEDC).

This is even as the Senate has assured that the bill will be passed on May 25, 2016.

Giving details of the programme, Sidi said the repentant Boko Haram insurgents had been registered in a programme tagged, “Safe Corridor initiative,” saying the programme was conceived to provide a leeway for repentant members of the sect to turn a new leaf.

He said the restoration of the formal education, sustainable agriculture, paternalism, infrastructural reconstruction, environmental protection and remediation should constitute the key focal areas of the NEDC.

His words: “It is not correct that the Federal Government does not have a plan for repentant sect members. The Federal Government has set up the safe corridor programme. I do know that over 800 sect members have been registered in it.

“They have exited the Boko Haram through the programme in line with the international best practice. They are currently receiving various skills acquisitions programme, which is being handled by the military. It’s being by the Chief of Defence Staff, “he said, while responding to a request on amnesty package for the sect.

Declaring the event open, Senate president, Bukola Saraki, assured that the bill would be passed on May 25.

According to Saraki, for seven years, the people of North East have suffered untold destruction of both private and public properties worth billions of naira.

On his part, chairman, Senate Committee on Special Duties, Abdul-Aziz Murtala Nyako, said the commission would provide the legal framework for addressing the challenges in the North East occasioned by the insurgency.

Mandate of the Commission include carrying out a survey of the North East states of Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Bauchi, Adamawa and Gombe, to ascertain the extent of destruction due to insurgency as well as planning and implementing of the North East Stabilisation and Development Master Plan.