Participants in the workshop in Abuja.
From 7 to 10 June 2022, the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) co-organized with UNODC and UNOCT a workshop held in Abuja, Nigeria. Under a project entitled “Supporting Lake Chad Basin Countries to Develop and Implement Strategies for the Screening, Prosecution, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (SPRR) of Boko Haram-Associated Persons,” the workshop was part of a series of efforts to help Lake Chad Basin countries develop a common approach to persons associated with Boko Haram, a group that was added to the UN’s consolidated sanctions list in 2014.
In its resolution 2349 (2017), the UN Security Council urges the States of the Lake Chad Basin region to develop and implement a regional and coordinated strategy that encompasses transparent, inclusive, human rights-compliant disarmament, demobilization, deradicalization, rehabilitation, and reintegration initiatives for persons associated with Boko Haram and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as Da’esh. In the same resolution, the Council urges States of the region to develop and implement consistent policies for promoting defections from Boko Haram and ISIL and for deradicalizing and reintegrating those who do defect. Member States of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) subsequently adopted a Regional Strategy for the Stabilization, Recovery and Resilience (RSS) and its SPRR, with the support of CTED, UNODC, and the African Union (AU).
Thus far, 12 national, bilateral, and subregional activities have been implemented under the joint project, including the bilateral Niger-Nigeria workshop held in early June 2022. This followed a workshop organized in February 2022, where representatives of Niger and Nigeria identified several needs with respect to the screening, prosecution, rehabilitation, and reintegration of persons associated with Boko Haram, as well as a series of recommendations on efforts to be made in that regard at all levels. The aim of the Abuja workshop was therefore to explore ways to strengthen cooperation in developing pragmatic initiatives by Niger and Nigeria to strengthen their bilateral relations and relevant prosecution, rehabilitation, and reintegration (PRR) processes. Other United Nations entities — notably including the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) — have undertaken complementary efforts.
Participants from the two Member States developed a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at operationalizing judicial cooperation between the two States’ competent authorities, together with a list of recommendations to strengthen existing mechanisms. The draft MoU is not intended to amend, replace, or modify any terms of the existing legal instruments, but rather to provide for practical arrangements for strengthening judicial cooperation under the existing legal instruments through regular strategic and operational meetings, the use of INTERPOL National Central Bureaus (NCBs), the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), and the focal points of the Network of West Africa Central Authorities and Prosecutors against Organized Crime (WACAP).
The workshop was the final bilateral event on Strategies for the Screening, Prosecution, Rehabilitation and Reintegration to be held under the current project. CTED, UNODC, and UNOCT will continue to engage with the AU, LCBC, and donors to discuss future United Nations support for implementation of the RSS and its SPRR Strategy, in particular the recommendations identified at the workshop, as well as previous recommendations that have not yet been implemented.