A former Director at the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Gavs Katiya, disclosed how he and officials of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) were regularly forced to take the oath of secrecy before speaking with repented Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria’s north-east.
He appeared as a guest on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday.
It started in March 2018 when the then President Muhammadu Buhari, announced his administration’s readiness to accept the “unconditional laying down of arms by any member of the Boko Haram group”.
Katiya said he was deployed to the North-east before he retired from NDE.
The former director said the position afforded him, alongside officials of the NOA, the opportunity to interact with some repented Boko Haram fighters.
“The first batch of repented Boko Haram fighters – 95 of them – was brought to my office while I was still the director in NDE.
“So, I interfaced with them because the then Federal government asked us to talk to them, to train them to embrace skills,” he recalled.
“Before we were allowed to talk to them, we had to take an oath that when you finished with them, you don’t have to say, ‘I saw this person. He’s one of the repented Boko Haram fighters,’” Mr Katiya said.
Katiya who hails from Gwoza, a town that was recently in the news when four female suicide bombers, suspected to be members of Boko Haram, killed over 20 people in the area on Saturday, 29 June.
“Many residents join Boko Haram group to earn a living,” he said.
Mr Katiya said the Boko Haram insurgency has been thriving in the North-east because “many” residents join the group as a means of livelihood.
“When the 95 repented Boko Haram fighters were brought to me, 70 of them were from Gwoza.
“There are some people who left my house to become Boko Haram fighters. They think this is an activity where you can get something,” he said.
“They have repented Boko Haram fighters who have that business mindset that insurgency is a means of livelihood.”
The former director now coordinates the Gwoza Resettlement Initiative, a private organisation dedicated to resettling refugees displaced by terrorist attacks in Gwoza.
Established in 1986, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE)is a federal agency responsible for tackling unemployment among Nigerian youths, mainly through skill acquisition programmes.
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