Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has disclosed that 800 former Boko Haram fighters, who surrendered to the military, are undergoing de-radicalisation for re-integration into the society.

The Chief of Defence, Operations, Maj.-Gen. Emeka Onumajuru, made this known on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme.

According to him, one year is enough time to re-orient and reintegrate the ex-terrorists into the larger society. He said though about 129,000 Boko Haram fighters had been arrested so far, only 800 former fighters were carefully selected to participate in the rehabilitation and reintegration project, tagged Operation Safe Corridor.

Onumajuru said: “To get the numbers right, right now, we have about 129,000 surrendered BH (Boko Haram) members and their families.

“We are a professional army and when you are in combat and an opponent surrenders, then you take him and let the legal processes take its natural course.

“Right now, some of them are in detention facilities, some of them are in Kainji, and there is a special court that goes through all of them.”

Those that were found culpable face the books and those that are going to be de-radicalised go through the process and this takes about a year.”

Asked whether it was possible to de-radicalise terrorists and reintegrate them into the society in one year, the top military officer said: “It’s possible because the de-radicalisation is done by professionals. That one-year period is sufficient enough depending on the people handling the de-radicalisation.

“The number taken in is not huge. As I said, we have 129,000 BH members and families. It doesn’t mean the 129,000 are going through the programme. The people going through the programme right now are about 800. Those 800 are people who have been sieved through the entire legal process before they are now brought to the centre.”