More than 1,000 Boko Haram members and their hostages surrendered to the Nigerian government, including two high-school students who were kidnapped seven years ago from the town of Chibok, in what security officials and mediators called a new chapter in Nigeria’s decadelong conflict.

Ruth Pogu and Hassan Adamu, who were abducted in 2014 along with 274 other schoolgirls in what prompted the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign, emerged from the jihadist group’s Sambisa forest hideout in recent days, alongside men who called themselves their “husbands” and children born in captivity. The fighters surrendered amid a surge in fighting between Boko Haram and its rival, Islamic State West Africa Province. Another woman, taken last year from Chibok, was with them.

Now in the custody of Nigeria’s intelligence agency, the women were being debriefed. Ms. Pogu was taken to the regional capital Maiduguri on Sunday and briefly allowed to see her family.

The development appears to mark a new chapter in a war that has left more than 35,000 people dead and uprooted more than two million. In May, Boko Haram’s longtime leader, Abubakar Shekau, died after a confrontation with Iswap. Since then, his movement has lost battles and territory to Iswap and has suffered mass defections while Nigeria’s government has offered a “safe corridor” to jihadist members and their families who surrender. Nearly all of the Chibok students still living in captivity are with Boko Haram, said mediators, who hope the group’s disarray can help them negotiate the release of more hostages.


The 2014 abduction gave rise to the #BringBackOurGirls social-media campaign, which spread around the world.

PHOTO: OLAMIKAN GBEMIGA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“Most are quitting…thousands of fighters are coming out of the bush,” said one mediator closely involved, who described efforts to free additional Chibok students. A senior Nigerian security official working on the safe-corridor policy said the government was shocked by the number of people surrendering and was preparing an expanded camp to process the returnees: “There could be more of the Chibok girls among them.”

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Boko Haram militants seized 276 schoolgirls from their dormitory overnight on April 14, 2014, the evening before their final exams, igniting the #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign that transformed them into some of the world’s most famous hostages and a central prize in the war on terrorism.

Some 110 of the hostages are now home: 103 were released in 2016 and 2017, in exchange for five fighters and a cash ransom mediated by the Swiss government. Since 2016, seven more have made their way to freedom. More than 100 remain unaccounted for after 2,677 days—still in Boko Haram custody or reportedly dead.

While Nigeria’s military has sought to frame the mass defections as the consequence of a renewed offensive, security officials have confided that the shift is the product of internecine fighting between the jihadists.

By Friday, more than 1,000 people—330 men and more than 700 women and children—had given themselves up around the towns of Bama, Konduga and Mafa on the edge of the Sambisa Forest, and more across the border in Cameroon, according to Nigerian security officials and mediators. In staged ceremonies, repentant-looking men have been photographed holding placards in English, some saying “Nigerians forgive us.”


The Boko Haram members turning themselves in are largely foot soldiers and civilians the group had effectively enslaved but also include bomb makers, according to security officials. Vincent Foucher, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based conflict resolution think tank, said the news confirmed that Iswap is ascendant and expanding its territory. “They are content to get new territory which is giving them more opportunity to attack. We’re already seeing instances of that,” he said.

We are yet to know the gist behind this sudden surrendering from Boko haram

Whatever you military cum Terrorists are cooking with this propaganda just keep it up north

We notice all this audio surrender started the moment you asked the media to stay off reporting terrorism actrocities

Monogamy:
We are yet to know the gist behind this sudden surrendering from Boko haram

airforce attack has been more intense.
Bokoharam stronghold camp that the military has been unable to attack for years was recently destroyed by the airforce with our recently acquired military aircraft.
Many of their leaders died in the attack and the rest knows its over without their highly autocratic leaders.
We are winning the war and in recent months, military casualties we used to hear b4 had almost dropped completely.
I fact for over 2months now, we've not heard of any dead soldiers from out unit in mambilla.

Mikecold:
Whatever you military cum Terrorists are cooking with this propaganda just keep it up north

We notice all this audio surrender started the moment you asked the media to stay off reporting terrorism actrocities

this is a typical example of a sadist.
You feel more sympathetic to terrorists because you hate northerners..
Becareful what your taught are, soon it may become your actions.

jumper524:
airforce attack has been more intense.
Bokoharam stronghold camp that the military has been unable to attack for years was recently destroyed by the airforce with our recently acquired military aircraft.
Many of their leaders died in the attack and the rest knows its over without their highly autocratic leaders.
We are winning the war and in recent months, military casualties we used to hear b4 had almost dropped completely.
I fact for over 2months now, we've not heard of any dead soldiers from out unit in mambilla.

Very good then... May God continue to bless and protect our gallant officers

Monogamy:
We are yet to know the gist behind this sudden surrendering from Boko haram

That's what BMCs want public to think.
Reality is, about 2-3 weeks ago when the bandits from Niger, Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Zamfara and Abuja started going to borno in what the media thought was for training from BH, it was an order from above to go and surrender and leave the amnesty campaign to the ogas at the top.
They are angry with SW secessionists and IPOB upsurge for gate crashing a northern affair. We are not all dummies you know.

CodeTemplar:
That's what BMCs want public to think.
Reality is, about 2-3 weeks ago when the bandits from Niger, Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Zamfara and Abuja started going to borno in what the media thought was for training from BH, it was an order from above to go and surrender and leave the amnesty campaign to the ogas at the top.
They are angry with SW secessionists and IPOB upsurge for gate crashing a northern affair. We are not all dummies you know.

Beautiful Sunday morning gibberish

jumper524:
this is a typical example of a sadist.
You feel more sympathetic to terrorists because you hate northerners..
Becareful what your taught are, soon it may become your actions.

It's your military that feels sympathetic to Terrorists not me

jumper524:
airforce attack has been more intense.
Bokoharam stronghold camp that the military has been unable to attack for years was recently destroyed by the airforce with our recently acquired military aircraft.
Many of their leaders died in the attack and the rest knows its over without their highly autocratic leaders.
We are winning the war and in recent months, military casualties we used to hear b4 had almost dropped completely.
I fact for over 2months now, we've not heard of any dead soldiers from out unit in mambilla.

Stop switching accounts in your bid to brainwash the public. The pattern tells it all. The sudden movement of massive bandits from many unconnected forests in the northwest to borno couldn't have been random but definitely a centrally coordinated operation. Add to it the audio casualties from bandits ably enabled by a sudden directive to media houses not to glamourise certain things, and it becomes crystal clear.

It seems like the Book Haram operation is bring wound up pre 2023. The goals have been largely accomplished. The "operatives" would be trained and absorbed into the army. I won't be surprised if they're eventually posted to ferociously guard oil installations and repress any dissent in the south. They should be in prisons and not unleashed on society.

Southern senators are sleeping, scheming and calculating their largess from Nigeria's coffers, otherwise there's a committee on military affairs to identify/track these "retired operatives", with a view to prosecution for their heinous crimes.

airoport:
It seems like the Book Haram operation is bring wound up pre 2023. The goals have been largely accomplished. The "operatives" would be trained and absorbed into the army. I won't be surprised if they're eventually posted to guard oil installations and repress any dissent in the south. They should be in prisons and not unleashed on society.

Southern senators are sleeping, scheming and calculating their largess from Nigeria's coffers, otherwise there's a committee on military affairs to identify/track these "retired operatives", with a view to prosecution for their heinous crimes.

God bless you.

airoport:
It seems like the Book Haram operation is bring wound up pre 2023. The goals have been largely accomplished. The "operatives" would be trained and absorbed into the army. I won't be surprised if they're eventually posted to ferociously guard oil installations and repress any dissent in the south. They should be in prisons and not unleashed on society.

Southern senators are sleeping, scheming and calculating their largess from Nigeria's coffers, otherwise there's a committee on military affairs to identify/track these "retired operatives", with a view to prosecution for their heinous crimes.

Well Buhari might be aiming of ending the unrest in North before he vacates.. At least some legacies

Monogamy:


Well Buhari might be aiming of ending the unrest in North before he vacates.. At least some legacies

Clown

intense fire power will always win the day.