The Operation Safe Corridor (OSC) created in 2016, only receives low-risk repentant terrorists for the De-radicalisation, Rehabilitation and Integration (DRR) programme, the Coordinator, OSC, Brig.Gen Yusuf Ali, has said.
Ali also denied that the low-risk clients are recruited into the military.
The Coordinator gave the explanation during the monthly briefing by the Director Defence Media Operations (DMO), Maj.-Gen. Michael Onoja, on Tuesday.
Ali said the repentant terrorists are categorised into three – low, medium and high risk terrorists.
According to Ali, the low-risk clients were those conscripted into the terrorist group during the heat of the insurgency in the North East.
“As kinetic operations were intensifying and they (terrorists) were being cleared from all places, they – terrorists, packed a lot of able-bodied men from those communities, conscripted them, and forced them to join their group.
“Some of them, as they are traveling from one place to the other, they ambushed vehicles, carried innocent people, took them to the bush, forced them to fight for them, to work for them, fetch water and all those things for them.”
Ali further explained that Operation Safe Corridor has 17 Ministrries, Departments and Agencies supporting it, as well as international organisations and UN bodies.
He said the Ministry of Justice is responsible for screening all those that have surrendered, all those that were arrested, and in the process of screening, they differentiate those who have no case to answer, those who were considered to, in their own way, victims – the low-risk clients.
According to him, the duty of Operation Safe Corridor is to take care of the low risk. The medium and high risk are to be handled by the Ministry of Justice.
He described Operation Safe Corridor as a work in progress – an initiative for peace building that every Nigerian is a stakeholder. “By all standards, Operation Safe Corridor is achieving its mandate.”
He denied that low-risk clients from the OSC are recruited into the military contrary to insinuation in certain quarters.
“Operation Safe Corridor is not a place where you recruit people into the Nigerian army. The Nigerian army has its own set of rules and procedures on recruiting people. And one of the requirements is that once you have any criminal record, you can never join the Nigerian army, and I think by extension, any security agencies.
“Operation Safe Corridor is not a place where you reward criminality by spoon-feeding them. No, the traditional criminal justice system is running its course because those that have been found guilty, they have been sentenced accordingly, and they are in their respective jails across the country.
“And there are other aspects that time might not allow me, so we have the frequently asked questions which came out of various interactions we had with Nigerians,” Ali said.