Borno: NGO trains 30 repentant insurgent wives on livelihood skills

Borno: NGO trains 30 repentant insurgent wives on livelihood skills
 
By: Olatunji Omirin

As part of its numerous contributions to rebuild and reposition Borno State for post-insurgency prosperity, a Maiduguri-based NGO, Allamin Foundation for Peace and Development, has trained 30 vulnerable women affected by the Boko Haram violent conflict on various vocational skills in four local government areas of the state.

The Executive Director of the Foundation, Hajiya Hamsatu Allamin, who made the announcement, said the beneficiaries of the training would be given business startup kits to enable them to earn a living.

She was speaking during a stakeholder meeting with the theme “Training of Stakeholders on Peacebuilding, Reconciliation, and Reintegration”, which was held in Maiduguri recently.

Hamsatu Allamin called for an all-inclusive program that would capture the wives of repentant insurgents with the intervention of the government, noting that the women are in dire need of succor.

The Executive Director disclosed that her NGO has hired Islamic scholars who are ready to deradicalize another batch of 30 wives of top insurgent leaders to change their concepts about society.

“We are trying to complement what the government is doing to close the gap between men and women in terms of benefiting from interventions,” she said, lamenting, “Many of these women are silent because they never benefit from any intervention from the government. These are wives of commanders of Boko Haram who have seen it all.”

Hamsatu Allamin said, “These are violent women who have seen how their husbands committed crimes of murder and drank blood before they all were killed in the bush.”

She continued: “So, these women never knew that what their late husbands were doing was wrong until we told them.

“Now we focus on these women to deradicalize them and to empower them economically with livelihood skills,” the ED said, adding, “We don’t want these women to go back to the bush again.”

She said, “If we fail to enlighten them, we might be sitting on a keg of gunpowder. 

“They have truly repented, and that is why we are going to train and equip them so that they send their children to school and take adequate care for them. 

Also speaking, BOT member Allamin Foundation Hajiya Ashia Wakilbe called on governments to ensure women at the various levels are empowered in society so that it can be better.

The 30 women were drawn from Jere, Mafa, Konduga, and Maiduguri Metropolitan Councils.

Borno: NGO trains 30 repentant insurgent wives on livelihood skills.