Using football to tackle Nigeria's Boko Haram (BBC Report)

 Jailed militant Islamists in Nigeria have taken up football as part of a government de-radicalisation scheme. The BBC's Will Ross met some of them.

It was not your average kick-around. The six-a-side game was inside the high walls of a Nigerian prison and the players wearing the smart green and yellow strips are all accused of being members of militant group Boko Haram.
The early-morning training session is part of a de-radicalisation programme. The jihadist group bans all sport so it is a sign of progress that these men in their 20s and 30s are playing at all.
"These are people who have a wild concept about life, who look at killing as a very easy something, so we have to work on them to change that ideology [and] for them to have respect for human life," says Emmanuel Osagie, a member of the de-radicalisation team.
"Initially the participation was not encouraging but when they saw their colleagues coming back excited and feeling fulfilled from the sport it brought the others out," he says.

'Loving religion'

The man trying to teach some teamwork skills is in no doubt that this is helping change their outlook.
"Before, they didn't tolerate others. There is supposed to be a spirit of sportsmanship and it is this spirit that makes them normal and reduces their radical ideology," says Abioye Adeshina, who is in charge of sports at the prison.

Some inmates say they were impressed by Boko Haram's promise to create an equal society

A loud evangelical church service was taking place right next to the pitch - a coincidence, I think, rather than a conscious effort to instil religious tolerance in the 45 inmates who are referred to as "De-radicalisation Interest Clients".

"When I came here, I wouldn't take orders from the prison staff. I was always arguing with them. I didn't consider them to be human beings," says a stocky man in his mid-30s shortly after pulling off a few saves as the yellow team's goalkeeper.

The man, who cannot be named for security reasons, tells me he was arrested at a checkpoint four years ago after banks and police stations were attacked in the northern Bauchi state. He denies any involvement in that violence but admits to being a Boko Haram member.

"I love my religion and when [former Boko Haram leader] Mohammed Yusuf came preaching to us, I started following him to the villages and towns where he was preaching," he said, appearing relaxed and comfortable being interviewed.

'Starting life afresh'

Still awaiting trial, he says he was never armed and does not support the violent nature of the group.
Mr Yusuf was killed in police detention in 2009 and when hundreds of his followers were also killed by the security forces during an operation in Maiduguri city in Borno state, the group became a far more radical, murderous force.
Sources