Boko Haram: Ndume faults amnesty for repentant insurgents

Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) has faulted the granting amnesty to repentant Boko Haram insurgents.

Daily Times recalls Operation Safe Corridor had granted amnesty to repentant insurgents after undergoing a six-month De-radicalization, Rehabilitation and Re-integration programme.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja during the weekend on his findings after touring different villages and towns within his constituency, Ndume said it was wrong to grant amnesty to terrorists when the war is still far from over, positing that such arrangement cannot bring the required peace.

“The war must be over before we start doing that.

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“The military could open up the corridor, allow everybody to enter and start profiling them and keep them somewhere as prisoners of war and train them.

“The current arrangement where the repentant insurgents are granted amnesty without apologizing to the victims and the state cannot bring about the required peace,” he said.

Ndume said more resources should be channelled to resettling the victims of insurgents.

He also alleged that the soldiers fighting insurgents in Borno were engaging in humanitarian activities.

Ndume said: “Despite the difficult challenges confronting the military operation in my area, the soldiers deployed to fight the insurgents have been very wonderful.

“At Ngoshe for instance, the military personnel there, apart from repelling the attacks from the insurgents, have mobilized resources to start rebuilding, through direct labour, houses that were destroyed by the Boko Haram fighters. The soldiers did not know the owners of the  houses they are rebuilding.”