Professor Isaac Olawale Albert has criticised Nigeria’s handling of captured terrorists under its rehabilitation and reintegration programmes, arguing that the country is misusing an internationally recognised post-conflict strategy.
Albert, a professor of peace and conflict studies at the University of Ibadan (UI), said disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration and rehabilitation, commonly known as DDRR, was designed primarily as a post-conflict peace-building mechanism.
Speaking in an interview with PrimeStar News Online, Albert said the process should normally follow the end of a conflict and should not be treated as an automatic escape route for people actively engaged in violence.
He argued that fighters captured while a war was still ongoing should be detained and prosecuted.
“During active war, captured fighters should be detained and tried,” he said, adding that amnesty should come only after due legal processes and, where appropriate, a presidential decision to grant amnesty.
Albert cited Northern Ireland as an example of how reintegration could form part of a wider peace agreement.
He said members of the Irish Republican Army had been imprisoned and that some were subsequently released as part of the peace process.
However, he questioned Nigeria’s practice of describing captured Boko Haram and other fighters as “repentant terrorists” without sufficient evidence that they had genuinely renounced violence.
He specifically referred to programmes including Operation Safe Corridor and similar initiatives in parts of Borno, Kaduna, Zamfara and Katsina.
According to Albert, some people who pass through rehabilitation programmes receive assistance and resources after completing the process, but there have been concerns about some former fighters returning to violence.
He said reports of former fighters returning to the battlefield, or allegedly becoming involved in attacks after rehabilitation, raised questions about the way the programme was being implemented.
Albert stressed that rehabilitation itself was not the problem, because DDRR was a recognised international approach to resolving armed conflicts.
Rather, he said Nigeria needed to determine the appropriate circumstances, timing and procedures for applying it.
He argued that the country should distinguish between people genuinely seeking to abandon violence and active combatants who had not demonstrated a commitment to peace.
Albert said Nigeria’s security strategy needed both military and non-military components, but warned that the non-kinetic component must be properly designed and implemented.
He maintained that the government should not allow the language of “repentance” to substitute for proper legal and security procedures.
