Nigerian experience with Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: examining operation safe corridors and the Niger Delta amnesty programme

Abstract

Upon assuming office in 2007, Nigeria’s former President Umaru Yar’adua initiated an amnesty programme for ‘repentant’ militants in the Niger Delta Region in order to provide them with stipends and training opportunities, as well as reduce the rate and spate of vandalism of oil installations and kidnappings of oil workers. The amnesty also sought to pacify the region after decades of infrastructural neglect and environmental degradation. The amnesty saw a reduction in disruptions of oil explorations, with an attendant increase in Nigeria’s oil output. Although there was renewed militancy in the region in the years following President Yar’adua’s death, the general consensus was that the programme achieved relative ‘successes. Similarly, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, shortly after assuming office in 2015, initiated a programme aimed at demobilizing, rehabilitating and reintegrating ‘repentant’ Boko Haram insurgents whose activities had led to an estimated 30,000 deaths, and the internal displacement of millions of people. The government’s aim was to encourage the demobilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration of ‘repentant’ Boko Haram insurgents who had willingly surrendered to the Nigerian Army and had openly denounced the insurgent group. Using data obtained from personal observation, focus group discussions and interviews, this study examines demobilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration as exemplified by the amnesty programme and operation safe corridor, with the aim of highlighting possible success areas, and areas of shortcomings.