There are early indications that the recent proposal to establish an agency to superintend over the rehabilitation and integration of repentant Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria may tear the Senate apart.
The Senate had, on Thursday, last week, introduced a bill seeking to set up an agency that would be responsible for the rehabilitation and integration of repentant Boko Haram terrorists in the country.
However, investigations carried out by New Telegraph showed that many senators expressed vehement opposition to the proposal, threatening that the bill would not be allowed to pass into law.
The lawmakers, who preferred to speak on the condition of anonymity for obvious reasons, argued that implementing the proposal would amount to encouraging other criminal elements in the society to join terrorism.
One of the senators, who is a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said: “It is too early for me to comment on this bill because it has not come to a point where it will be debated. It was only introduced on Thursday on the floor of the Senate.
“But I must say that some of our colleagues don’t seek advice from men of good conscience and ideas before coming up in the open with certain sensitive proposals. This bill is very sensitive, that federal legislator, who should be a nationalist, should not even contemplate it in the first place.
“How do you boldly canvass for the rehabilitation and integration of terrorists, who have radical religious ideology, into the society? How do you determine that they have repented, are you a spirit; do you see their hearts?
“I know that this bill will not make progress in the chambers of the Senate because many of us from the East, West, North and South are men of goodwill, integrity and patriotism. We will not allow this affront to see the light of the day.”
Another senator, who is a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), lamented that a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria could initiate such a bill, which would bring division in the Red Chamber, and also portray the chamber in a negative light before the right thinking citizens.
“This bill is very unpatriotic. The bill is seeking to rehabilitate and integrate enemies of the country; for what reason? These are people who don’t have legitimate demands; neither do they have respect for the government of Nigeria. This bill will not go through, I can assure you that,” the senator said.
Also speaking on the bill, one of the senators argued that it would amount to hypocrisy if the representatives of the people set up a body to oversee the welfare of those killing them.
The lawmaker further said that the Federal Government had severally told the world that the insurgents were not Nigerians, and that it would be difficult to use taxpayers’ money to rehabilitate and integrate terrorists that had caused the country serious pains in the last many years.
“The irony of this thing is that, we have been made to believe that the Boko Haram terrorists are not Nigerians. Some of them are said to have come from Libya, others from Niger, Mali, Chad and so on. How do we start rehabilitating and integrating foreign invaders?
“We should not deceive ourselves please; and let us not do things that will make us a laughing stock before the international community. Left for me, I will advise the sponsor to quietly withdraw the bill, but if he insists, we shall meet on the floor of the Senate and I wish him luck,” the politician stated.
The senator representing Plateau North, Istifanus Dung Gyang, has disassociated himself from the bill.
Gyang in a statement signed yesterday by his media aide, Musa Ibrahim Ashoms, rejected the bill sponsored by Senator Ibrahim Gaidam.
He noted that most of the victims and communities affected by insurgency, banditry and violent attacks, were still languishing from neglect and lack of the much needed government attention and intervention despite repeated calls.
Gyang said victims and communities displaced by insurgency and banditry were the ones to be rehabilitated and reintegrated as against terrorists and bandits that were responsible for their pain and sorrow.
He described as ironic a situation where care and attention for terrorists took precedence over that of their victims. He said the bill was offensive to the good conscience of Nigerians.
“Attempts at certain quarters to compare and equate Boko Haram insurgency with the case of Niger Delta agitators, which attracted the Presidential Amnesty Initiative and Programme under the administration of President Yar’Adua, was ludicrous.
“The Presidential Amnesty Programme was not a product of legislation, but of government policy and has remained so. It was an intervention programme with a timeline and a terminal date, unlike the pro-Boko Haram bill, which intends to create an agency that will exist in perpetuity.”
Gyang called on all senators to reject the bill given its obvious negative implication for the security of the nation; saying to do otherwise was to incentivise terrorism and put the nation in perpetual harm’s way.
The bill, which is entitled: “National Agency for the Education, Rehabilitation, De-radicalization and Integration of repentant insurgents in Nigeria (Est, etc.) Bill, 2020 (SB.340)”, is being sponsored by the immediate past Governor of Yobe State, Senator Ibrahim Gaidam (APC, Yobe East).
According to a draft copy of the bill obtained by our correspondent, when established, the agency would “provide avenue for rehabilitating, de-radicalization, educating and reintegrating the defectors, repentant and detained members of the insurgent group in making them useful members of the society.”
Other aims of the bill are to: “provide avenue for reconciliation and promote national security.
“Provide an-open-door and encouragement for other members of the group who are still engaged in the insurgency to abandon the group, especially in the face of the military pressure.
“To give the government an opportunity to derive insider-information about the insurgence group for greater understanding of the group and its inner workings.”
The bill further says that gaining greater understanding of the insurgents will enable government to address the immediate concerns of violence and study the needs of de-radicalization effort to improve the process of de-radicalization.
Also, the bill states that the agency will help disintegrate the violent and poisonous ideology that the group spreads as the programme will enable some convicted or suspected terrorists to express remorse over their actions, repent and recant their violent ideology and re-enter mainstream politics, religion and society.
Gaidam explained further in the draft copy that if established, the agency, through maintenance of open lines, would be able to gain greater understanding of both the immediate needs for combating Boko Hararn as well as tool for counter-radicalization in the future
Newstelegraph