Special report
When Senator Adams Oshiomhole stood up in the Senate and said, “No more deradicalisation” and “those who kill have no right to live”, he wasn’t just throwing soundbites. He was going straight for the heart of one of the Federal Government’s most controversial security policies: spending public money to “train” repentant terrorists.
His argument is simple and brutal:
> You don’t use taxpayers’ money to rehabilitate people who have slaughtered Nigerians – including women and children – while their victims rot in IDP camps.
This report breaks down what he’s attacking, the facts behind it, how other countries handle the same issue, and why his position is resonating with so many Nigerians.
1. What Exactly Is Oshiomhole Attacking?
At the centre of the storm is Operation Safe Corridor (OpSC) – the Federal Government’s deradicalisation, rehabilitation and reintegration programme for ex–Boko Haram and ISWAP fighters based mainly in Gombe.
In his recent remarks, Oshiomhole, who represents Edo North, told the Federal Government to:
Stop “training repentant terrorists” with public funds
End all deradicalisation programmes for those who have killed
Enforce the law strictly, insisting that those convicted of terrorism “have no right to live” – referencing both Nigerian statutes and religious texts.
Strip away the emotion and you get three core complaints:
1. Justice is being sidelined – Terror suspects are going through admin-run “rehab camps” instead of transparent trials and sentencing.
2. Victims are being insulted – The state is clearly seen to be doing more for ex-fighters than for widows, orphans and displaced communities.
3. The policy may be making insecurity worse – By creating the perception that crime pays – fight a bit, surrender, get training and a starter pack.
2. The Hard Numbers: A War With a Heavy Bill
Since Boko Haram’s uprising began in 2009, the north-east has seen one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
A UNDP assessment estimated that by the end of 2020, the conflict in north-east Nigeria had caused almost 350,000 deaths – only about 35,000 from direct violence, and a staggering 314,000 from indirect causes like hunger and disease fuelled by the war.
Millions have been displaced; entire communities have been erased or scattered.
Now put that beside this:
The National Counter Terrorism Centre says at least 5,000 “repented” Boko Haram fighters have been deradicalised under Operation Safe Corridor and reunited with their families. Officials proudly claim none have returned to the battlefield within six months of completion.
To a traumatised public, that contrast is obscene:
Hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced
Thousands of fighters “forgiven” and resettled – with training, kits and a clean slate
Oshiomhole is essentially asking: Whose side does this policy look like it’s on?
3. Operation Safe Corridor: Good Intentions, Bad Design
On paper, deradicalisation makes sense. International best practice says you can’t kill your way out of a long, entrenched insurgency. People do defect. Not all fighters are hardcore ideologues. Some are camp followers, coerced recruits, or minors.
But Nigeria’s version has serious structural problems.
3.1 Victims are an afterthought
Research on OpSC and similar initiatives consistently notes that victims and host communities were not placed at the centre of the design. Locals in Borno and other affected areas complain that the state spends more time and money on former fighters than on those who lost everything.
You cannot plausibly talk about reconciliation when IDP camps are underfunded, trauma support is weak, and compensation is virtually non-existent – while ex-fighters leave rehab with starter packs.
3.2 Targeting is messy
International Crisis Group’s assessment of Operation Safe Corridor raised an awkward point: many of those processed were low-level actors or people fleeing the conflict, not the mid-level commanders the scheme was supposed to prioritise. Meanwhile, some hardcore figures avoid the programme entirely.
That creates a dangerous mix:
Innocent or marginal people are stigmatised as “ex-terrorists”
Some genuine perpetrators are never properly prosecuted
Communities can’t tell who is who – they just see “them” coming back
3.3 Recidivism is real – even if government denies it
Defence spokesmen often claim none of the deradicalised have gone back to terrorism, usually citing short monitoring windows.
But investigative pieces and editorial commentary tell a different story. In 2023, a Punch editorial listed specific cases of supposed “repentant” fighters later arrested over ambushes, IED attacks, or rejoining armed networks, questioning the credibility of official assurances.
Even if these are a minority, in terrorism a “small” failure can mean dozens of deaths. That’s Oshiomhole’s point: one bad release is too many.
4. How Other Countries Do – and Don’t – Do It
Deradicalisation isn’t a Nigerian invention. Other countries use it – but usually not as a substitute for justice.
4.1 United States and United Kingdom: Prison first, rehab second
In the US and UK, convicted terrorists generally face:
Long prison terms
Tight supervision on release
In some cases, citizenship stripping (for dual nationals in the UK)
Rehabilitation and counselling happen around incarceration – not instead of it. UK analyses of terror cases show authorities increasingly rely on long sentences and strong post-release monitoring as their primary risk-management tool.
The key signal is clear: you will be punished first; any rehabilitation comes under tight control.
4.2 Saudi Arabia: The best-known rehab model – still with failures
Saudi Arabia’s Care Rehabilitation Center is one of the world’s most famous terror rehab facilities. By 2017 it claimed to have treated over 3,300 men with an 86% success rate – which still implies that around 14% either reoffended or were regarded as failures over a 10-year period.
That’s in a highly controlled environment, with enormous funding, surveillance and social pressure. Even then, some graduates went back into militant activity.
4.3 Denmark’s Aarhus model: Narrow, targeted, supervised
Denmark’s Aarhus model focuses mainly on prevention and carefully screened returnees – people who can plausibly be turned around. It is run by police, social workers and psychologists together, and is designed for early-stage or borderline cases, not hardened mass killers.
Again, the pattern: small scale, extremely selective, data-driven, and never replacing prosecution in serious cases.
4.4 Where Nigeria went off-script
Nigeria adopted the language of modern DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration) but not the discipline:
No transparent, independent data on recidivism
Weak or non-existent community consent
Very limited visible justice for killings, abductions and mass atrocities
A scale that far exceeds the state’s monitoring capacity
Oshiomhole’s instinct – that this is a dangerous experiment being done over Nigerians’ heads – is not irrational.
5. Is Oshiomhole Right to Say “Shut It Down”?
On the core moral issues, he’s on very solid ground:
1. Justice must come before rehabilitation
Terrorism is one of the gravest crimes in Nigerian law. Running people through “camp” without proper trial or sentencing undermines the rule of law and insults victims.
2. You cannot ask shattered communities to forgive on command
Real reconciliation must be built, not forced. That means long-term support for victims, clear punishment for perpetrators, and honest communication – none of which are strong points of the current arrangement.
3. The signal to potential recruits matters
If the street takeaway is “fight a bit, surrender, and you might get a government package,” you are feeding the very thing you claim to be fighting.
Where his position is risky is in the absolute language – “no more deradicalisation” – with no nuance for:
Children abducted and forced to serve
People who never actually fired a shot but were trapped in insurgent territory
Low-risk individuals who could be debriefed, monitored and turned into intelligence assets
If you slam the door completely, you push everyone – from ideologues to coerced cooks – into the same hard corner. That’s not smart security policy either.
6. What an Adult Policy Would Look Like
A serious, grown-up response that takes Oshiomhole’s anger seriously but learns from global practice would look like this:
6.1 Freeze and audit, not blindly continue
Put new admissions into Operation Safe Corridor on hold.
Commission an independent audit involving the military, victims’ groups, human rights bodies and external experts to assess:
Who has been processed
What they actually did
Recidivism rates
True financial cost
Impact on communities
6.2 Justice-first for high-risk and serio offenders
Anyone credibly linked to killings, bombings, mass kidnappings or sexual slavery should face proper investigation and trial.
Any “rehabilitation” for them should happen inside secure facilities and never replace punishment.
6.3 Narrow, evidence-based deradicalisation for the margins
Reserve community reintegration programmes for:
Minors and abductees
Those clearly coerced
Very low-risk actors
Even then, only after some form of judicial process – even if it ends in reduced or suspended sentences.
6.4 Victims first, not last
Create a visible victims’ compensation and support scheme – housing, education, trauma treatment – funded at least at the same level as any ex-fighter scheme.
Make it obvious that the state’s first loyalty is to the wounded, not the perpetrators.
6.5 Radical transparency
Publish regular, anonymised statistics on:
Numbers processed
Offence categories
Recidivism
Costs
You cannot rebuild trust while asking citizens to “just believe” a system they never helped design.
7. Conclusion: Anger With a Point
Oshiomhole’s statement is blunt and uncomfortable, but it lands because reality is ugly:
A war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions
Thousands of fighters being quietly recycled through “rehab”
Victims left with little more than slogans and trauma
Deradicalisation, done properly and narrowly, can be part of a long-term security strategy. But what Nigeria is running right now is too broad, too opaque and too skewed toward the people who caused the damage, not those who suffered it.
On one core line, he is voicing what many Nigerians feel:
> A state that could not protect its people has no business pampering their killers.
The challenge now is whether Abuja will respond with maturity – by tightening, auditing and rebalancing the policy toward justice and victims – or simply wait for the headlines to fade and carry on as before.
Princess G. A. Adebajo-Fraser MFR.
The National Patriots.
