The Borno State Government on Friday received 20 detained members of the Boko Haram sect from the Ministry of Defence in line with the Federal Government’s resolve to free some of them.
Governor Kashim Shettima received the detainees comprising six women and 14 male children between the ages of nine and 14 at Government House, Maiduguri.
Shettima thanked President Goodluck Jonathan for his magnanimity and courage in pardoning the detainees.
He said: “We thank the President for his courage in pardoning the detainees who are mostly women and children.
“This indicates his commitment for peace and the return of normalcy in the state and Nigeria as a whole.”
The governor commended the security agencies for keeping the detainees safely and handing them over to government in good health.
He added: “We will do our part by ensuring that the detainees are integrated into the larger society after rehabilitation to become good citizens.
“We will admit the women into our development centres for rehabilitation while the children will be handed over to the Ministry of Women Affairs for the same purpose.”
Shettima said that at the end of the rehabilitation, government would hand over the children to their parents with written undertaking to enrol them in schools.
A cross section of the freed detainees, who admitted working for the Boko Haram sect before their arrest, said they were hired mostly as intelligent gatherers against the military.
They thanked the Federal Government for their release and promised to turn a new leaf after their rehabilitation.
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