They have been surrendering in droves of late. And their stories of
recruitment and surrender have been as outlandish as they are
intriguing.
Many of them narrated that the heat from the firepower of the military was becoming unbearable.
They also spoke about the promises that were made that encouraged them
to join terrorist groups only to find at the end that they were empty
promises.
Their tales were laden with regrets. These were former fighters of the
terrorist group, Boko Haram, and its Islamic State West Africa Province
(ISWAP) affiliates operating in the North East of Nigeria and the Lake
Chad Basin bordering Nigeria with Chad and Niger.
The former fighters narrated how military offensive on their former
hideouts and camps had been so much so that divisions not only broke out
among their erstwhile commanders, many of them were also eager to
surrender while their families, especially women and children whom they
had all along used as human shields in Sambisa forest and other hideouts
and camps, were now being dumped and abandoned, to enable them escape.
They cited the dumping of 33 women and 39 children, totalling 72, at
Ngala town, near Sambisa forest as an example.
The military corroborated their story, citing the killing of late 19
Amir’s or commanders of the BHT/ISWAP terrorist groups by troops,
compared to a total of 18 Amir’s killed between January and March 2020.
Indeed, the number of ISWAP fighters surrendering has recently,
according to the military, increased by the day with 11 of them throwing
in the towel on May 11, 2020 in Adamawa State.
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