The home of the founder of the Boko Haram sect, Mohammed Yusuf, is to be turned into a museum in order to boost tourism in the area.
Borno State government is also considering plans to transform the Sambisa forest – the group’s base – into a tourist centre, the BBC reports.
But critics said the plans risk immortalising Yusuf, who was killed by police in 2009.
About 20,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency, with dozens still dying in deadly attacks on a regular basis.
“They should look for a place like the police college, which the group destroyed,” human rights lawyer Anthony Agholahon told the BBC.
“They should not be using the house of someone who killed people.”
Yusuf formed the group in 2002 and focused on opposing Western education.
Seven years later, Boko Haram launched its military operations in an attempt to create an Islamic state.
Since then, the group, which officially is called Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, meaning “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad,” has spread into neighbouring countries.
However, the Nigerian government said it is winning the war against the group, and it seems officials in Borno State, one of the worst affected areas, are looking to the future.
Borno State commissioner for Home Affairs, Information and Culture, Mohammed Bulama, told journalists the house in Maiduguri would become a museum “where all the things that had happened relating to the insurgency will be archived.
