Internet has become an indispensable part of our daily life. We need it to communicate study, organize, advocate, carry out financial transaction and engage in community life. Embedded in it are perils that pose threat to our privacy, safety, confidentiality and even endanger us both as individuals and as a nation if we do not know how to navigate and avoid these perils.

In view of this, the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) have been organizing workshops to enlighten and educate the general public about the dangers that are associated with internet and how individuals can protect themselves from being harm either financially or their integrity. On the 23^rd of November, 2017 the Centre organized similar workshop in Dutse, Jigawa state to Journalists, CSOs and students of tertiary institutions in the state.

The workshop was facilitated by Engineer Kamal Umar of the Training Department, Centre for Information Technology and Development and Hamza Ibrahim, Research and Media Officer of the same centre. In his opening address Engineer Kamal informed the participants that the aim of the workshop is to equipped the participants with necessary and prerequisite knowledge/information on how to stay safe online, know the various techniques used by the hackers, how to identify fake sites, why strong password and also how to shop online if necessary.

Three papers were presented at the workshop; General Online Safety Tips and Internet Safety and Privacy Issues by Engineer Kamal and Understanding Internet Security and Safety by Hamza Ibrahim. The facilitators took the participants deeply in explaining the various threats that are associated with internet such as Hacking, Spread of malicious virus, Internet shutdown, Data corruption, Sites jamming, Data and Documents thefts, Phishing, Email spoofing/spam bots, National security threats. In his explanation, Engineer Umar mentioned that people/countries are no longer using weapons in attacking their enemies rather they turn to cyber war where countries/people are stealing and interfering with other people/countries sensible information and use it to disrupt or harm them, he gave an example with what happened during the last American presidential election where Russia interfered and changed the result to its favorite candidate.

Towards the end of the workshop passwords testing session was conducted, where participants tested their passwords in order to know how strong or how long it will take a hacker to hack their accounts. Some of the participants that bragged their passwords were strong found out that the reverse is the case which made them to change it instantly.

At the end of the workshop questions and comments were entertained. One of the participants asked the facilitators on how someone can make his password strong, in his respond Hamza Ibrahim answered that by using different characters; numbers, block letters, small letters (mixer of different characters) etc. in his comment, Malam Khalifa said he never thought putting password on his devices is very important and necessary but with today’s workshop, he has seen and also known the importance of doing it. Basirka also commented that before he never knew the necessary and important sites to visit on the internet but now he can differentiate between fake and genuine websites and also how to make his password strong.

Finally, a vote of thanks was given by Mr. Ali Sabo, CITAD Coordinator in the state where he thanked the participants for answering the invitations and urged them to put in place what they have learnt at the workshop and to also extend the knowledge and share it with their colleagues, friends and families.

By Maryam Ado Haruna

 The Director of the MacArthur Foundation’s Africa Office, Dr. Kole Ahmed Shettima, expressed that Nigerian youths should become today’s leaders not tomorrow. He explained that the deceptive statement, “leaders of Tomorrow” should be debunked by the youths as they supposed to be the ones leading the nation presently.

The Director made the statement during the monthly Inspiring Leadership Interactive Reflection Series (ILERIS), organised by Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD).

While giving an opening remarks, the Executive Director of CITAD, Yunusa Ya’u explained that the purposes of ILERIS is to inspire young Nigerians to become better leaders. He added that people are not born with success, they struggle to achieve it.

While narrating his profile, Dr. Shettima explained that talent is a universal gift that is given to everyone by nature, but the opportunity to explore it is the major challenge especially to the northerners in Nigeria. He therefore urged the mentees to make effort in creating opportunities for others, adding that creating a system in which people could remedy themselves is very essential in a society. He further said that people can impact the lives of others with the little they could offer.

During the interaction, the Director lamented that the main goal of the university as universal civic society is missing today as students unionism is been divided. He added that one of the major drawbacks to the younger generation is localization of universities. He also lamented that talent will stop coming from the northern Nigeria as 75% of the children in the north are malnourished, and therefore their brain cannot grow and function effectively.

Dr. Kole has also stressed that if every Nigerian will keep his or her own little corner clean, the whole Nigeria will become cleaned as well, but today, people run away from their responsibilities and criticize the government for things own responsibilities.

In his presentation, Dr. Kole advised the mentees that it is always good to take a risk if it guarantees a better future. He further explained that the only constant thing in this life is change and that people should not copy others; rather, they should try to bring the best in them.

At the end of his presentation, he advised the mentees to be responsible and accountable as well as hard workers, and should not struggle for immediate gratifications. He added that wealth that is made from hardworking and long term struggle is the most beneficial.

Some of the mentees asked the director whether the MacArthur foundation has provisions for  People with Disabilities, the Almajiris and the police widows. Another mentees asked whether the director is interested in leadership due to the qualities he possesses.

While responding, Dr. Kole explained that the Foundation makes very difficult decision in deciding who gets its grants due to  limited resources, plenty  proposals as well as the objectives of the foundation. But he expressed his satisfaction that at least many organisations and individuals benefit from MacArthur’s indirect grants through other organisations like CITAD.

Upon the question whether he will like to contest for a political office, Dr. Kole agreed that he could make more impacts if he was in the government, but he explained that Nigeria lacks leadership recruitment process in form of mentoring and training the potential leaders on the system of governance.

At the end of the interaction, Engineer Kamaludden Umar, the coordinator of the Digital Summer Institute for Young Women in the Northeast and Northwest, which took place at Abuja and Kano, presented the Prize of Tablets to three winners of the summit including Shema’u Adam Imam from Kano, Aisha Ismail from Kaduna and Fusam Shettima from Borno state.

Referring to the statement made earlier by Dr. Kole, the coordinator said that these tablets are opportunities for the beneficiaries to explore their talents in the digital world.

By Ahmed Jada:-

Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has advocated for the establishment of a Ministry or body responsible for peace building which it said, the country is now lacking.

The centre, a non-governmental organization noted with concern that there is no central organ as a body that is able to coordinate and create synergy in terms of conflict resolution or mitigation.

CITAD Executive Director, Yunusa Z. Ya’u told a press conference in Bauchi Thursday that the Plateau and Kaduna states Peace Commission set up few months ago and last month respectively lack gestation period to assess what they have been doing in peace building.

Ya’u, who was addressing the press shortly after CITAD conduct of a two-day meeting tagged, “Youth In Peace Building Conference”, noted that there was absent of a responsible body at either state or federal level to steer the cause of peace building.

He observed that the challenge facing the youths in peace building is largely of a negative tendency of politicians of instigating the youths or mobilizing people to intimidate opponents, thus describing politicians as actors in instigating conflict or violence in communities.

The CITAD director therefore stressed the need for politicians to be accountable to not only the mandate given them by the electorate, but accountability in terms of what they say as, according to him, words that are coming out of their mouth often ignite violence.

“So we like the politicians to be aware of the words coming out from their mouth that can be more dangerous than guns, they must be careful in how they deploy words”, Ya’u admonished.

According to him, many of the hate speech that populate the social media and other forms of media are largely connected to political activities.

To this end, CITAD called on relevant government agencies, particularly the National Human Rights Commission to ensure that politicians do adhere to the rules of law, pointing out that INEC guidelines on campaigns are explicit about banning provocative speech.

“We have seen where politicians going about inciting violence and nothing is done about it. We urge law enforcement agencies to take proactive steps to ensure that people who break the law are brought to book and made to pay penalties”.

He attributed the hate speech bombarding the social media sites and other conventional media to weak or poor regulatory framework due to poor political will at leadership level, and outmoded framework and policies.

Alhaji YZ Ya’u therefore called for the review of NBC code in conformity with model or global trend, saying the NBC code prescribed sanctions for inciting speech.
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