A total of 744 former fighters have completed the Federal Government's De-radicalisation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration Camp under Operation Safe Corridor. The largest group—597 participants—came from Borno, with Yobe contributing 58, Kano 15, Bauchi 12 and Adamawa 10. Other states sent smaller numbers, while foreign nationals included one each from Burkina Faso and Cameroon, two from Chad and four from Niger. The graduation ceremony took place in Gombe.
General Olufemi Oluyede, Chief of Defence Staff, told the graduates the programme is not amnesty but a strategic step to cut reoffending and disrupt recruitment. "This is not a reward but a deliberate approach to reducing violence, weakening recruitment pipelines, and fostering long-term stability," he said. Brigadier General Yusuf Ali, coordinator of Operation Safe Corridor, said participants received psychosocial support, vocational training and reorientation to prepare for reintegration, calling it a collective responsibility. "This process is about rebuilding identity, restoring values, and preparing individuals to return as responsible members of society," he said.
Oluyede's blunt dismissal of any amnesty framing exposes the political tightrope the programme walks. By framing it as a security tool rather than a pardon, the government distances itself from the optics of rewarding violence while still pursuing a pragmatic exit from the insurgency's long shadow. The skewed regional intake—Borno alone supplying four-fifths of participants—reveals where the war's scars remain deepest and where the state's reintegration promises will face their toughest tests.
For the families of the 597 Borno returnees, today's ceremony offers a fragile hope: their kin return alive but branded former combatants in communities that have lost trust in the military's narratives. The inclusion of foreign fighters from four neighbouring countries shows the insurgency's cross-border roots, yet it also risks turning the reintegration effort into a regional burden the Nigerian state cannot shoulder alone.
The programme's emphasis on vocational training and psychosocial support is a tacit admission that bullets alone cannot end the cycle. Yet without sustained community buy-in and credible economic opportunities, the same hands that once held guns may soon wield tools in frustration, repeating the cycle of grievance that fuelled recruitment in the first place.
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