Unemployed youth and those living in poverty, who were starving because of the steep hike in food prices – mostly as a result of the insurgency – should be the first to be empowered by the Borno State government, instead of the “repentant Boko Haram members” who had surrendered themselves to troops.

That was the feeling among many citizens of Bulabulin in Maiduguri who attended a meeting, organised by the government, to talk about the reintegration into society of the former fighters of Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’way Wa’l-Jihād (JAS), commonly known as Boko Haram.

Representatives from the government, security agencies, including the army and the police, the Department of State Services, and international aid partners, such as the United Nations Development Programme, attended.

In September, Brigadier-General Abdulwahab Eyitayo said that more than 8,000 JAS insurgents had surrendered to troops from hideouts and enclaves in the Sambisa Forest and elsewhere.

The government had taken the decision to allow the “repentant” insurgents and their families to be reintegrated into communities after strictly supervised and rigorous rehabilitation.

The decision did not sit well with many community members who said they would find it extremely difficult to live side by side with the very people who had killed and tortured their loved ones.

Since the insurgency began in 2009, the JAS has killed thousands, displaced millions – most whom had found themselves in internally displaced persons’ camps or host communities where they could not earn a living – kidnapped and abducted hundreds of children and destroyed properties worth billions.

RNI reporter Mustapha Abubakar said the event was held to educate the public on how to interact, accept and live in peace with the repentant insurgents who, by the time they would be reintegrated, would have undergone rehabilitation and received entrepreneurial skills training.

The government had also agreed to provide capital, enabling them to become self-reliant.

Muhammad Bulabulin, a resident, said civilians had no choice but to accept what the government proposed. “It’s the government who has the power to punish or forgive the repentant insurgents. We, as residents, cannot do anything to stop that decision.”

He said that during the meeting residents were told that the repentant fighters would have to undergo rehabilitation and learn different entrepreneurial skills before they could be reintegrated. But he found difficult to accept that the government would do all this for the surrendered insurgents, even giving them money to build businesses, when the youth in the state had no jobs and found it hard to survive.

“Why won’t the government first empower jobless youth, who have done no harm, instead of helping the repentant insurgents, who have caused untold misery in the state?”

Muhammad said he learnt a lot at the event but he believed the situation was still risky because it was possible that some of the reformed insurgents could deceive the government and join the sect again.

Abdulhamid Sale Bishara, the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) registrar of the Bulabulin sector, said although measures on how to co-exist peacefully with the repentant Insurgents in the community were discussed, the government needed to provide for the needs of residents first to prevent another crisis.

“As CJTF members, whenever we caught a Boko Haram fighters, we did our job and handed them to government. I beg the government to consider the needs of civilians in the state who are living in poverty, are jobless and hungry because the high cost of food. Their needs should be sorted out first before the rehabilitated insurgents were set them free inside community.”

Ali Ibrahim, who heads the vigilantes in the Bulabulin area, said civilians had no option but to agree with the government’s decision.

“I vowed never to forgive Boko Haram but after the meeting I think it might be possible to live peacefully with our brothers as we did before they became insurgents. We will never forget the past but I think we can coexist if they are truly repentant.”

Maimuna Abba, a resident Bulabulin, the event informed her about how the former fighters would be thoroughly rehabilitated before they joined their communities.

“It will be good to live in peace and harmony again.”