30,000 terrorists have surrendered – Governor Zulum

Governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum has said that about 30,000 terrorists have surrendered to the military

He made this known when he visited President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential villa on Thursday, February 10th.

When asked if the number of those that had surrendered involved a huge number of ISWAP members, he said; “As at now, we have received nothing less than 30,000 from beginning to date from both Boko Haram and ISWAP. ISWAP, we have started receiving them in few numbers, but Boko Haram, we have started receiving them in huge numbers.”

“This time around, we have also started witnessing defection of ISWAP members. This is a welcome development. Under closed-door session, we discussed a lot of issues on how the government of Borno State, as well as the federal government, will manage the ongoing surrender by the insurgents.”

“As I’ve been saying before, the kinetic measures alone will never end the insurgency, the social and political dimension of this crisis is very important. So, we have decided to engage them through dialogue and mediation with a view to ensuring that many of them lay their arms down and so far, so good, the objective has started yielding positive result.

“Apart from this also, in Borno State, for example, as I told you last time, we have problem in the shores of the Lake Chad, as well as in the Southern Borno. I’m pleased to inform you that there was a very heavy military deployment into the Southern Borno and I hope such deployment will also take place in Northern Borno, to be able to clear ISWAP on the shores of Lake Chad