Title: Nigeria: Ending Unrest in the Niger Delta | Crisis Group
Headings: Nigeria: Ending Unrest in the Niger Delta
Nigeria: Ending Unrest in the Niger Delta
An Exit from Boko Haram? Assessing Nigeria’s Operation Safe Corridor
I. Overview
II. Creating an Exit from Jihad
III. Missing the Target
IV. A Brutal and Tortuous Path
V. Reintegration: Out of the Corridor
VI. Repairing the Corridor
VII. Conclusion
Dakar/Maiduguri/Brussels, 19 March 2021
Appendix A: Map of Nigeria

Content: Authorities channel into Safe Corridor far too many civilians fleeing Boko Haram areas, unjustly mislabelling them jihadists, clogging the system and putting off donors. More troubling are accounts from program participants who have seen sometimes deadly conditions at the facilities they pass through on the way into Safe Corridor – both a concern in its own right and a deterrent for those who might follow their path. Despite improvements, the reintegration of defectors into society can be bumpy. The program is also controversial, with critics arguing that it amounts to amnesty for terrorists. For Safe Corridor to thrive, the government will need to better screen out civilians, protect participants and more effectively reintegrate graduates into society. It should also work harder to persuade the public of the program’s merits. The Nigerian government created Safe Corridor in 2016 after concluding that it would not be able to defeat the Boko Haram insurgency, which it has been battling since 2009, by military means alone. The program’s core target group is low-level jihadist recruits who perform combatant and/or non-combatant roles and are important to the daily functioning of Boko Haram’s two main factions – Jama’tu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad, or JAS) and Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP). There is ample reason for these recruits to seek an exit. When defectors leave the jihadist factions, it is normally due to mounting scepticism of the insurgency’s prospects, exposure to atrocious violence, the danger posed to them and their families, aversion to the factions’ unfair and brutal internal politics, the lack of material gain after years of service and, for some, the desire to escape a movement they were coerced into joining.