A United Nations report exposes a secret program to provide repentant terrorists with a mince of livelihood. And Pan-European social and political organisations at Fennefaire warns that Nigeria may be drifting towards a tyrannical state. This is Plus Politics and I am Mary Anacorn. A United Nations publication has detailed a secret government program tagged Sulu designed to pull commanders of terrorist groups including Boko Haram and the Islamic State for West Africa province Aiswab out of the forest. We happily take them and provide them a mince of livelihood. Now the development comes as an intelligent agency began investigation into the recent surrender of over a thousand two hundred terrorists and their families in the last three weeks according to the report. The investigation seeks to ascertain whether the surrender was genuine or applied to activate and coordinate terror sleeper cells across the country. Now security officials believe Sulu could open a door to a peace deal ending a conflict that is now in its twelfth year but critics argue that such a deal would reward mass killers. Anyways joining us to discuss this is Dixie Nossage and if they want to go both of them security experts. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you. All right so I'm going to start with you Dixie because you're here in the studio and I'm going to toss to a fate. But the first question that comes to everybody's mind is are we trying to reward bad behavior here? Oh sure we're trying to reward bad behavior. Yeah we're trying to reward bad behavior in the sense that most of these unnecessary human beings are needed to pass through a procedure and that is the reason why I think the administration of criminal justice system has been defeated because the state governors or the government doesn't have that power as to, at their own will, pardon terrorists. We're talking about terrorists here who have decimated a lot of human being. You know if you go to most of our barracks now we have one of the largest, we have the most populous widows in our barracks, our barracks accommodates more of widows who lost their husbands in the battlefield and some of them amputated. Last week I was at a drug control meeting to celebrate with my costumers who just marked our 23rd anniversary in the military. So I went to pay them a visit and I saw some of them amputated, legs amputated, hands gone and I felt so bad that if our government would have to tread on this part, pardoning this criminal element without letting them pass through the administration of criminal justice system. The administration of criminal justice system comprises of the police, the court and the prison and the police needs to prepare the charges against these guys, then the court needs to convict them, then they let them go and pay the price for their offenses. But if we have them reintegrated into the society, definitely we, you can, don't trust a terrorist, you understand, you and I saw what transpired in Afghanistan. It took American 20 years to build Afghanistan and it took the Taliban 11 days to take over Afghanistan. If you trust terrorists, you're going to be in danger and some of these guys, if they have been reintegrated into the society, nobody knows their next plan of action and if Nigerian government are not careful, they might be creating more dangers ahead of this great nation. Efe, could it be that the federal government knows, you know, that this is a great way to end insurgency or terrorism in the country and that's why they're taking this route? Do you think that maybe they've done due diligence and they feel that this is the best way to deal with it? Efe, can you hear me? Yes. Yes. I do not have the information that I've disposed of, but whatever may be the reason, the time, the motivation for kind of action, clearly it's a no-no for me because like your daughter in the studio Dixie House position, I want to align myself entirely with him. You don't appease criminals, you know, people and moreover to the digital report, the U.N. report, it's a people-understand program, it's not out there in the open, so there is nothing to give credibility in the manner of speaking and it is not as though you have been able to box the criminals, the terrorists into a corner and then they have no way to go. They have been taken as criminals and then you have not gone through rehabilitation processes, I want to reintegrate them. What we are doing basically is to appease criminals and to create an incentive for other would-be criminals, to take to criminality. But since we have killed Nigerians, who continue to kill Nigerians and all Nigerians, I've been rewarded program to whatever, you know, I've had problems from the... Efe, I think we're having connection issues. I'm sorry, I think we're having connection issues. So we couldn't hear some of the things that you said, but I'll come back to you, Efe. Dikbar Alayakou is a journalist and he's joining us also via Zoom. Mr. Alayakou, what about addressing the issues that brought about this insurgency in the first instance? The reasons why we are facing the kind of terrorism that we're facing today in Nigeria, wouldn't that be a better way to deal with, you know, this insurgency than, you know, going about this rehabilitation process? Sorry, I didn't get the beginning of that, Mr. Alayakou. So I'm saying, what about addressing the issues that brought about the insurgency? Lack of education, infrastructure, lack of infrastructure, poverty, unemployment. What if those things were addressed? Would that not be a better way of dealing with the problem, I mean, going to the root cause instead of trying to somewhat rehabilitate these terrorists? Yes, if we are looking at the age of Boko Haram, but I think that is the one we are talking that is in Boko Haram now, because we are talking about independent terrorists, I think this is a fallout of the news that we are getting in the past two weeks when the Boko Haram guys are said to be surrendering in their thousands. I think that needs to be understood that the case of the Boko Haram is like the case of religious extremism. So I think the best thing to do, which I think the government has already been, is a process of a program called the radicalization of these guys, because it is the teaching that is propelling some of the people to join them, and then that is propelling them to go into these acts of terrorism. But I think that is not something that will take care of those people that are already in the field. I think it is the radicalization, and then changing the method of preaching, which I think the government started some six or seven years back, checking the type of preaching and teaching, as well as the clerics, teaching them how to do it. Because if you look at the Boko Haram, if you look at it, you will see that it is the extreme. Some of them have seen the local head with them, and that is why the Boko Haram guys believe that they are the authentic ones, because they are the extreme. So anything short of their own belief with them is a covering. Hello. Mr. Laikul, when you say that the radicalization would be the solution, I'd like to take you back to the fact that these people, there has been a set that was so-called de-radicalized, and we hear from the same Nigerian army that some of these people went back and became informants and moles for Boko Haram. So really, I ask my question again, should we not be addressing the root cause of the problem instead of trying to put a plaster on the cancer? No, that's why I said it's a two-pronged approach. Why are you trying to de-radicalize the people that are already in the field, that are already at the brainwaves into believing what Boko Haram says? There's a deal for the government, which I think they are doing. Second, a critical look at the type of preaching that is being dished out. That's what I say. When you listen to some clerics, you wonder at the type of teaching they are giving out, which was an extent of giving rise to this extremism. Religion should be a matter of moderation. But when it is not only in Islam that you have a stupidity. So I think what the government is trying to de-radicalize, don't put that already there, that have been captured into the fold. I think what the government should also do, which I think that they should similarly pay more attention to it, is the type of preaching that gave rise to the Boko Haram in the Islamic schools and the mosques. There's a new government to regulate, so to speak, that I think we have to do what they say, or to moderate. So that people that are teaching religion in the churches, in the mosques especially, don't give rise to the kind of teaching that these Boko Haram guys have been praised because if you listen to them, for example, we are looking at Taliban's that have taken over in Afghanistan now. They are Muslims, but there are other Muslims that believe that they are to be assumed. So I think the government has a lot of work to do, and that is where the NOA comes into play. That is National Recreation Agency. This is the area where I think they should be doing more. Sorry, I think something just happened to the others. OK. Dixon, back to you. Is this a quick fix? Because he's saying the government probably is going in the right direction and de-radicalization can work. But the fact that it's it's been shrouded in so much secrecy, doesn't it call to question how government is going about it and the army? You say if it's a quick fix? I think, yes, it's a quick, terrible fix, you know, and it's going to be detrimental to the survival of Nigeria. First of all, we need to understand that ideological driven war is different from other driven war, just like what transpired in the Nigel Delta as some other part of the world. This ideological driven war is a war that perhaps could take till eternity. You can't tell somebody, for example, I'm a Christian. There's nothing you're going to tell me about Jesus Christ. Today, the opposite side of Jesus, that I believe, because that is my faith. I understand. And most of these guys are being brainwashed in the sense that they believe that when they take out an infidel, they have a place in heaven, you know, kept for them. And that is why, like the last speaker rightly said, we need to start looking into religious brutality, because sometimes we always believe that in our climb here, we're suffering from police brutality. Police brutality is the least problem we have here in Nigeria. We need to look into police religious brutality. We also need to look into psychological and ethnocentric brutality, you know, tribal brutality, because Nigeria, and looking at the ethnography of Nigeria, Nigeria is a massive nation and the diversity of our tongues is also a natural problem itself. So for me, I will advise the federal government to be very, very careful because you can't trust a terrorist. You can't trust a killer. If somebody can go to that extent to eliminate human lives and you think you can bring it back to the society, then they must go to all the prisons in Nigeria and release all the criminals, those ones that stole mangi, those ones that stole pepper and salt. Let them go and release everybody in prison because I don't think this is a good way or a good notion. And that is why the spirit of insecurity sprang up because sometime last three years, I advise the Karsina state governor ought to be very careful about negotiation because you don't negotiate with the enemy. And if you must negotiate with the enemy, you must negotiate from the side of strength and not on the side of weakness. When you sit on the side of weakness and negotiate with your enemy, your survivor would be very, very, would be, would be at risk. That is why boundaries sprang up in the South West because of these negotiations, kids and these kidnappers, they believe that, hey, you can make money by illegally transporting our people. And you can see from the South West in the past, from the North West in the past two, three months now, the illegal exploitation or transportation of our students in school is becoming worrisome. Nigeria is a treatise, it's a signatory to the safe school declaration in Oslo, Norway, 2015, and we are not abiding by that safe school declaration in protecting our children from the hands of this unnecessary human being or criminal elements. So for me, what I want the federal government to do, they must be very careful not to certify crime because certifying crime is, you know, believing that those that commit this heinous crime they should be forgiven. Oh, yes, I'm not against them surrendering, but surrendering could be deceptive. I am a trained soldier. For the fact that somebody is surrendering in the battlefield, you need to analyze the reason why you surrender in the battlefield. Perhaps the high-powered fire, the Tukano bombardment, the Air Force bombardment, the artillery bombardment, the armor bombardment is too heavy for them to contain and they all come to surrender. You have to understand that that surrendering was based on high-fire power. But if that surrendering is of true conscience and they believe that what they are doing against the Nigerian state is really erroneous, then we can take that surrendering as a true surrendering. So surrendering could be deceptive. And let us not jubilate or rejoice over them surrendering because surrendering could be deceptive and it could be a formation in which they need to fall back, you know, have a plan B and strike the government again. So if the government think they want to continue to negotiate these guys, I am telling you that the government are satisfying crime and that tells you people from all parts of Africa will have to come into Nigeria because they'll believe that Nigeria is a prone environment where people can commit crime and go scot-free. And we also need to... We have a lot to do in Mary Anne. We need to go into the effectiveness of our administration of criminal justice system.  Punishment is very essential, you know. If you don't punish people for what they do, our crime will continue to flourish from the east, west, south and north. But the government, if truly they report from the United Nations, is true, is going to be a shame and they must return our tukano back to America and collect back our change because we're expected that tukano to come and perform wonders. Tukano is built to continue with... But I mean, I'm going to come back to that because that's a case on its own and the senators who sat on that, who put a pause on it and have their reasons, we'll come back to that. But I'm back to you if you, I hope you can hear me. Security officials, according to this UN report, believe that this strategy, this Sulham strategy of theirs, could open the door to a peace deal and end this tail-mated war, this guerrilla warfare that has been on for more than a decade. So I'm wondering to myself, do you think, Efe, that this is the way to go? Oh, I think we lost Efe.  The same question. Security operatives, our own security officials think that this is a great idea. This is the way to go. They think that this will open a door to a peace deal. But I also like to put it in there that there are victims. There are people who their family members have been killed, have been missing for years. They've not been able to hear from them.  Our soldiers also, and I'm not talking about the senior officials, I'm talking about the men who are in the thick of the warfare. Also feel that their brothers, their comrades have been taken. In considering all of this, I'm thinking to myself, do you support the fact that these officials think that this will open a door to a peace deal? And what do you consider peace in this instance? Yes, yes. There is a need for us to understand that this thing is based on what we are discussing is based on the report. This, of course, is not right. We have not had to come down. But let us assume that that report is correct. All over the world. Every war ends as a negotiating table. Every war. No matter how very powerful you are, there's a point in time when everybody realizes that there's no need for the war to continue, that there's no need for us to waste human beings and their human resources and their other resources. Every war ends as a negotiating table. But usually what happens is that government is always, like my brother said, is always negotiating from the point of strength. So that government can determine the way the negotiation will go. If you realize that in the past three or four months, the government has really testified his war against these guys. And by that, that is why you are seeing them coming out in their thousands to surrender because of the fire of the government. But you see, there's no need for us not to have short memories of collective of Asia. Nigeria society, it's not only in Nigeria society. I always make reference to one man called Gary Adams. He used to be the leader of the Supreme Court. That is the ministry of the IRA. You know the half of the IRA direct in that time, about 15, 20 years ago. You know, after the peace negotiation, the man ended up as a member of the parliament. So again, let us now compare, let us come back home. You will realize that there was a time when we have a terrorism act, also to speak some people said we cannot compare. What was happening in the South-South that it lets you what you want to realize that was the president then, how to negotiate because at the end of the day we had his- But those are two different- I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Mr. Layaku, but those are two different things. And I can make an argument. I know that the Niger Delta militants are not here. But- The Amnesty program that the Niger Delta militants have, is totally different from what the army is serving to terrorists who outrightly kill people because they do not want Western education. I brought my sister- The militants, and I'm not in anywhere making a case for the Niger Delta militants, but then you're taking all from right under them. They do not have healthcare facilities. They do not have access to education. Their waters have been destroyed by these IOCs. So they're negotiating from a standpoint. I'm wondering what ISWAP's position would be asking for amnesty. Help me.  The moment somebody comes up from the forest and he says, I'm surrendering, the army cannot do anything. They cannot open fire on them again. That is the predicament of Nigerian government now. Because these guys came out, there's a rule of engagement. These guys came out and said we are surrendering. And like from what the chief of army staff said, when he came on, he said to him, he doesn't want to hear that. I said, but please surrender. If you can catch them in the forest, phone them down. But the women, they come out with their hands, let's go and see if you're surrendering. The rule of engagement said, you captured these guys as a prisoner of war. So now the government is faced with a predicament. What do we do? Do you remember what happened? So if they are prisoners of war, why can't they stay prisoners? Why do you have to give them houses, give them a new lease of life when people are still having to live with the consequences of their actions? My dear sister, the woman somebody comes out, she has become a prisoner of war. There's a way you can treat that person. You see, this thing is not only peculiar to Nigeria. That is the general standard.  The only thing short of that is the United Nations or whatever the ICC will count them guilty of what they call abuse of matters. So the government is a predicament. There's a need what the government should do now because there are some people that joined this Boko Haram, not out of their own body shop. Many of them were conspired into the Boko Haram Army by force, instead of they captured them or they captured their wife, their children. So I think what the government needs to do is to profile them. Who are the real commanders? Who are the people who actually went into the war with their eyes open? Some people were coerced to join in. So I think that's what the government should do, to profile them, to know those who actually perpetrated this army out of their own position, and not those who were captured and then compared to go into this war. So it would be difficult for government to capture about 2,000, 3,000 people and say they want to drag them to war. Many of these guys joined the Boko Haram because they were forced to join. We have had the state cases of abduction and so forth. So I think what the government needs to do now, the use of covering everything is now ended with the military. Everything now boils down to government. This is where government comes in and let me tell you the issue of negotiating the Boko Haram meeting starts just today. So because, like I said, it has always been there, let's appreciate it. So it's a total fail. How then can we trust these guys? That is the important thing. So what the government needs to do and that is what the intelligence agency needs to come into play. How did these guys individually join Boko Haram? Were they coerced into joining or they joined out of their position? What was their level of culpability? Those are the things that the government would do by now. But while they are in the custody of the government, the government should make sure they are entitled to basic amenities of life. It is not the government doing it. It is the standard of truth of engagement in any situation. And it changes the government. Well, Dixon here seems to disagree with you when you say that they're entitled to the basic means or amenities. I mean, the means of livelihood.  So he can tell us from a soldier's perspective. But of course you have a right to your opinion and this is what you strongly believe in. But Dixon? There are different mechanisms in curtailing with the rule of engagement, like you actually said. But for me, I don't think the rule of engagement simply means where your enemy surrenders, you pick him up, give him a bath and house him. That is wrong and erroneous. For us to get the clarity about the rule of engagement, we first of all need to look at the causative factors. What led to this war? What are the causational factors, causative factors that led to this war? Is it an ideological driven war? Is it that the federal government deprived these people of their rights? Is it that the federal government deprived them of their natural resources, their oil or whatever the case may be? But these are guys that pick up arms and stage an insurrection against the Nigerian state. Key to a lot of human beings, key to a lot of soldiers, key to a lot of people. Okay, we cannot end this war by military might. And anywhere in the world, military might cannot end terrorism. But what I've advised the government to do, if you're looking at DDR, demobilization, disarmament or integration, reintegration is the last resort in bringing these guys back to society. You can't just pick them up, shower them, give them house and then reintegrate them or sometimes maybe send them abroad or whatever the case may be. If you do that, like I already said, you are satisfying criminality and you are not going to eliminate the causative factors that led to this war. So we must eliminate these causative factors so that the next five, 10 years or other group of people will not raise an insurrection against the Nigerian state. Now these guys that are surrendering, what should the government do to these guys? First of all, they demobilize, disarm these guys, like disarmament, then they demobilize these guys, take them all from the battlefield or by surrendering or forcefully capturing them. Then if you want to carry out the reintegration process, they must be punished for their crime. They must go through punishment. Even if the government says, okay, guys, we are going to give you guys amnesty, but definitely you guys are definitely going to pay for this crime. Two years imprisonment, three years imprisonment. If you don't do that, if the government think they want to reintegrate these guys because listen to me, Mary Ann, we are most very careful, we are talking about the Nigerian state and these criminal elements are a group of people, pockets of enemies, staging war against the army, navy, air force. But let's not forget that there are people who have been forced to also join that fight. I hope you know, there are certain young men and young women who became bombers, who became members of their sleeper cell, who did not outrightly stand with them, but they were forced into it. Yeah, that's the demobilization stage, you know, to interview these guys, what went wrong. But anybody can claim that he or she was caught? Yeah, this application of psychology comes to play, you know. I need to look at how old you are, I need to understand how long you've been in this battlefield. Now, let us just be truthful to ourselves. If the government want to address this war, they must be truthful to the Nigerian state. And if you want to give these guys, and if the government think they want to give these guys this amnesty or whatever the case may be, they must compensate every soldier that died in the battlefield. They must compensate every one that is injured in the battlefield. All these soldiers, my younger brother was shot in Chibok, 2014, when those Chibok guys were arrested. Today, he's still living with his cars in his leg. So they must compensate my younger brother for that gunshot, because you can't compensate the criminal and leave the victim. We have to wait this incident. Then finally, the government must look at the resourcing of these criminal activities. Where are they getting their resources from? Because we're not even looking at the resourcing. But we're negotiating with these people and paying for abductions every now and again. Who's to say that we're not funding terrorism? Yeah, Mere, and that is why criminality is flourishing. At the arrest of Evans, the kidnapper, that was when kidnapping took the boom. Why did kidnapping took the boom at the arrest of Evans? Simply because when Evans was arrested, the Nigerian police did not manage that incident. People got to know that Evans was making billions from kidnapping, because the risk implication attached to kidnapping, I just drive by, see a human being walking on the street. I see him. The risk implication is very, very slim compared to the risk implication going to the bank. When last you heard about bank robbery? When last you heard about road robbery? Because people have got to understand that kidnapping, the risk application to kidnapping is very slim. Risk application is saying that your life is not intensively in danger in carrying out that criminal act. As much as, I mean, I really understand both of your angles, but as much as we're saying we do not want to fund terrorism, if you put yourself in the shoes of the parents of these people who have been abducted or their family members, you would want to move heaven and earth to make sure that you get your family member out unhurt. Did you see the video of the children that were being bitten by the terrorists? Because they wanted- I saw that video. Exactly. And you want such kind of people to be given amnesty? But again, how do you also stop the funding from going to them if you are not negotiating to give them money and get your family members out? So we're in between a rock and a hard place. Thank you very much. So we'll talk about crime. Crime is an incident that will take to the end of time. You can't eliminate crime. But as security practice determines, you must mitigate the spread of crime to as low, as reasonable, acceptable- At the expense of how many deaths. You say what? At the expense of how many people dying. No, that's what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say in the essence is that you must mitigate the spread of crime. Mitigating the spread of crime in the sense that you have to put in all the security applications in place so that those who think they can commit crime and go scot-free will not have that opportunity. Criminal elements only need opportunity to flourish. But our government must fix in every mechanism in place to mitigate the spread of crime in Nigeria. We have to go. Our time is up.  He's a journalist. Thank you very much for joining us, Mr. Dick Ball.  Thank you, Dick Sin, for coming to the studio. It's a pleasure being here. All right, we'll take a short break. And when we return, the Afene Ferre has warned that Nigeria just might be heading for a dictatorship. We'll be right back. Stay with us.