Abubakar Gambo was among the 833 children released from a militia group fighting against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria on Friday.
Gambo, now 17, joined the group when he was 13 years old and acted as the groups watchdog and informant.
The released children were among 1175 boys and 294 girls who had been identified as being associated with the Combined Joint Task Force(CJTF) in the city of Maiduguri, UNICEF said, although the total has yet to be verified and could include another 2 200 or more children.
The CJTF signed an action plan in September 2017 to end child recruitment and the release of the children, 40% of whom were 15 or younger was its first formal release.
Nigeria’s government has said since December 2015 that Boko Haram has been “technically defeated”, 20 months after the kidnap of the 270 Chibok girls, yet attacks continue in the northeast, while Islamic State West Africa, which splintered off from Boko Haram in 2016, holds territory around Lake Chad.
