Follow Us on Google
By Henry Umahi
One of the flagship projects executed by North East Development Commission is the Centre for the Study of Violent Extremism (CSVE) at the University of Maiduguri, Borno State capital.
Unveiling the centre, the managing director of NEDC, Alhaji Mohammed Alkali, said it was expected to “conduct researches into the causes of violent extremism, including Boko Boko Haram insurgency and develop measures to counter extremism.”
He also announced the release of N48.3 million as research grant to the centre.
Indeed, many youths in Borno State were believed to have joined Boko Haram after listening to several evil messages by the sect leader, Mohammed Yusuf, leading to the insurrection on July 29, 2009.
So, the centre is expected to provide research, training and strategic advice to government, intelligence agencies and civilian communities to prevent and defeat extreme violence threats in the North East as well as develop community resistance to extreme ideology, preachings and practices/radicalization.
During a recent tour of the centre, the Vice Chancellor of UNIMAID, Prof. Aliyu Shugaba remarked that with the establishment of the centre, intellectualism would be harnessed and deployed to tackle the menace of insurgency. According to him, the effort would enable scholars to address the root cause of insurgency in the country.
He said: “We must know why this madness reared its head, what can be done to curtail it and ensure that we do not have this kind of madness anywhere again in any part of the country.”
He said the university had begun research and innovative programmes to tackle insecurity following the devastating effects of insecurity in Borno State and its environs.
He said: “In recent years, we have started recording success in research; we have about five patents and we have a breakthrough in registering the patents. We are now looking at their commercialisation.”
Saying that Maiduguri was now safe, he disclosed that more lecturers were taking up jobs with the university.
The NEDC was established to help rebuild the North-East zone, which has been ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgency in the last 13 years and which took the already fragile and poorly performing regional economy into a spiral decline.
Before the advent of the insurgency, the zone’s human development index (enrolment data, child mortality, harmonised test scores, stunting rates, adult mortality, etc.) was among the worst in the country.
