A report by a United Nations (UN) independent news organisation, The New Humanitarian (formerly IRIN News), has uncovered a secret programme by the Nigerian government tagged, Suhlu, aimed at pulling top commanders of terrorist groups, including Boko Haram and the Islamic State for West African Province (ISWAP) out of the forests, rehabilitate them and provide them with a means of livelihood.

According to the UN organisation, Sulhu grew out of the behind-the-scenes attempts to free the more than 270 Chibok schoolgirls seized by Boko Haram in 2014, and is applauded by its supporters as smart warfare – a means to remove the senior jihadists from the battlefield more effectively than the orthodox military campaign.

The discovery follows intelligence agencies’ investigations into the recent surrender of over 1,200 terrorists and their families in the last three weeks, to the Nigerian government, to ascertain whether the surrender was genuine or a ploy to activate and coordinate terror sleeper cells across the country.

Images of bedraggled jihadists and families surrendering to the military have sparked heated debate over the Nigerian army’s claims of success in its long war and the future of fighters who lay down their guns.

Scores of Boko Haram members have been shown in army images this month surrendering to soldiers in northeast Borno state, some given hand-written signs to hold asking Nigerians for forgiveness.

Nigeria’s army describes these as mass defections — the success, it says, of an intensified campaign to end a 12-year conflict that has killed around 40,000 people and displaced around two million more.

But analysts and security sources say the surrenders are probably driven more by Boko Haram’s recent losses in infighting with rival jihadists from the Islamic State West Africa Province or ISWAP.

Gunmen in Nigeria have freed a number of pupils who were kidnapped from an Islamic school in May, according to their head teacher.

Some 136 students from the school in Tegina, Niger state, were seized by gunmen demanding a ransom.

The head teacher said a small number escaped in June. There were unconfirmed reports that six died in captivity.

Mass abductions for ransom have become increasingly common across Nigeria in recent months.

Head teacher Abubakar Alhassan said he could not give an exact number of how many students had been freed, but “none of the pupils are in captivity”.

He told the BBC that the freed students were looking unhealthy, frail and exhausted. They are now being treated in hospital in the state capital, Minna.