Zulum: Why Boko Haram members are surrendering

Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, has attributed the mass surrendering of Boko Haram insurgents to the state government’s offer to receive and rehabilitate them.

Zulum made this known while speaking through his Special Adviser on Security, Brig.-Gen. Abdullahi Ishaq (rtd), at a public lecture organised by the University of Maiduguri in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, on Wednesday, October 25, 2023.

Ishaq said: “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.

“The first batch of 35 insurgents who surrendered and received good treatments, 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.”

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He added that the resolve by the people to accept those who surrendered back into society also facilitated the insurgents’ surrendering.

“They are happy to hear that the people of Borno are ready to forgive them,” he said.

Ishaq stated that the death of the former leader of the group, Abubakar Shekau, and the supremacy fighting between the Boko Haram and the ISWAP group also created a wide division, noting that many insurgents abandoned the fight.

The governor’s aide added: “Shekau’s death coupled with the fact that most of the die hard Boko Haram members have been killed in combats with military and the inhouse fighting made many mostly those conscripted to abandoned 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, however, lauded the military for working in synergy with security agencies in the fight against insurgency in the country.

Over 100,000 Boko Haram/ISWAP fighters and their family members have so far surrendered to troops in the state under the “Borno Model”.

The Star