The Defence Headquarters (DHQ), Tuesday disclosed that about 8, 000 Boko Haram suspects, have since surrendered to the Operation Safe Corridor, an initiative by the Nigerian Military designed to receive repentant fighters.
The Acting Director of Defence Information (DDI), Brig.Gen. Rabe Abubakar, who made the disclosure in Abuja, stated that the repentant suspects were being kept in a camp in Gombe State, where they are expected to undergo a process of de-radicalisation.
This was as the DDI further disclosed that troops involved in the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operation in the North East, had rescued over 10,000 hostages that were held by Boko Haram.
Abubakar said, while some of those rescued have since been reunited with their loved ones, others were taken to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, set up by the Federal Government, to cushion the pain of displacement.
While reiterating the military’s earlier position, that the sect has been largely decimated, as it can hardly carry out large-scale attacks, the Defence spokesman said government’s preoccupation now, was how to reconstruct communities destroyed in the wake of insurgency, and the return of displaced persons.
On the recent decision of the Nigerian Army, to declare a journalist and two others wanted in connection with alleged Boko Haram links, Abubakar assured that no journalist will be victimised or treated unjustly.
He, however, advised the media against being sentimental.
