HURIWA condemns planned rehabilitation of 613 deradicalised terrorists

•Alleges unseen forces behind release of terrorists, benefiting from attacks

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), yesterday, condemned planned rehabilitation of 613 deradicalised terrorists.

The group said the plot as announced by the Chief of Defence Staff that 613 rehabilitated terrorists, who were said to be currently undergoing deradicalisation and rehabilitation handled by Operation Safe Corridor would be released to states is in bad taste.

HURIWA in a statement by its national coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, alleged that unseen forces authorising release of terrorists are top government officials making billions of dollars from the spike in attacks, through phantom arms and weaponry contracts.

The allegation followed recent confirmation by military authorities that it would hand over 613 rehabilitated “low-risk repentant” terrorists to their state governments.

HURIWA demanded that the Federal Government must subject mass killers to the legal system so they are made to give account of their dastardly crimes and sanctioned heavily for daring to take up arms against the state and for slaughtering over 40,000 civilians, including Children, old women and hundreds of sick, disabled people in the North East.

The rights group said it is strongly opposed to the planned release because those that are released under the guise of repentant terrorists are the same combatants recruited by Boko haram terrorists and ISWAP, and are the same persons bombing train stations, attacking communities, kidnapping travellers and aiding and abetting the many prison breaks that have happened in recent times.

The group said: “Those at the top echelon of government who make a killing by negotiating and collecting generous commission on unexecuted and fake Defence budgets running into trillions of Naira for over ten years are the very persons pushing for their so-called ‘repentant terrorists’ to be released and reintegrated back into the same society where they masterminded series of killings and attacks for nearly a decade.”

“This irrational talk about releasing over six hundred hardcore terrorists that they re-baptised as ‘repentant terrorists’ is nothing but a gambit to keep up the tempo of vicious attacks by the terrorists so these fake defence contractors in government will continue to line their pockets with blood money whilst the people of Northeast perish and the millions of internally displaced persons and refugees forced to flee from Nigeria and millions of other civilian victims of terrorist attacks are left to face their cruel fate under excruciating circumstances.”