The Director-General of the Benue State Peace and Reconciliation Commission, Mrs Josephine Habba, has said that the plan to establish a Deradicalisation, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration (DDR) centre in the state is not targeted at Boko Haram but at bandits in the state.
Mrs Haba was reacting to what she termed a mischievous misrepresentation of the planned DRR in the state.
According to Mrs Haba, the DDR centre intends to attract global attention to Benue State and to bring in additional security personnel with different roles and capacities to empower repentant bandits.
She explained that the plan is to launch the programme in the state on February 25, as the repentant militants are monitored throughout their rehabilitation process.
“The peace commission will go to their various communities to build community resilience, mental health work of community members who have been hurt and identify the community livelihood that was destroyed and work to restore these livelihoods that where destroyed and compensate them where compensation is needed and ensure that schools and hospitals are returned to them so that we would have a seamless reintegration of these community members who would return from rehabilitation and reintegrate them with their families,” Mrs. Haba said.
