By Bukola Afeni

The executive director of CITAD Mallam Ya’u said a large number of boko haram members are initiated due to poverty and socioeconomic factors in the country .
The executive director gave the indication at a public presentation of a book on community resilience on Boko haram in Abuja Mallam Ya’u is also urging communities to access information on what can be done to remain security conscious in the environment where they reside.
“It is not only about bringing arms and ammunitions around the community ,but by maintaining security ”

“Communities need to come together to protect itself from unnecessary violence acts in the society”
“Violence provides a framework of operation ,and we need to research and find out the modalities behind the insurgent activities “he noted.
The executive director is therefore urging all Nigerians to be united in eliminating the boko haram activities in the country .
“When the people are unified in fighting insurgent activities,the country can make progress in terms of security “he added.

He also disclosed that the government should seek for means of eliminating poverty from the country ,by creating employment opportunities to the teeming youth .
According to Mallam Yau when Boko haram first gained prominence in the country ,some of the members attested to the fact that they were initiated into the group, because it will provide a means of livelihood for them.
“While some joined the group because they don’t have vision in life ,and lost hope of excelling in life”he noted.
In the same vein ,the executive director noted that Borno state is the centre of movement in the North east ,and hence become the centre of Boko haram in the country ..
Speaking further ,the lead researcher ,professor Jibrin Ibrahim said there is an urgent need for community and religious leaders to engage in advocacy to bring people together in fighting insurgency in the country.
According to Professor Jibrin ,the boko haram ideology has created a radical extremism that infiltrates the religious movement.
While noting that the religion that is meant for peace and tranquility has resulted in violent religion .
He further noted that the group has developed an ideological framework to work with religious leaders who understand the people in different communities. “The society is meant to have an alarm bell that identifies deviants in the society ,and put an end to the activities ,no matter the statistics “he added.
Professor Jibrin stressed that the core problem with public education is that the standard has fallen drastically .
“The level of graduates we have now is not encouraging ,majority of the graduates are illiterates ”
The declining quality of education is more important ,and there should be an urgent need to address it .
Reacting to the high number of almajiris in the North east,he said there has been a fundamental transformation of religious activities into activism in the country .
“The religious activities had made some of the youth to engage in beliefs that is inimical to the growth of the country ”
“The youth need to reconnect from.some of the erroneous beliefs for the communities to move forward “he added.
The director MacArthur foundation ,Dr kole Shettima said there has been an indictment on the education system because people have lost confidence in it .
“We are perpetrating a lot of inequality in the society ,the wide between the rich and the poor is so wide ”
“The elite do not send their children and wards to the public school facilities .
Citing Lagos state as an example ,he said the state has fewer public schools ,compared to the North which has a large number of public facilities .
In addressing the issue of insurgency ,extreme inequality is one of the triggers ,which has to be nipped in the bud .
Government should provide skilled jobs that youths can venture into,and serve as source of empowerment.
There is an urgent need to criminalise hate speech ,and preachers that practice such should be severely dealt with .

Arguably, the first of such book to have rolled out of the press in Nigeria entered the national market today along with the controversy as to the very nature of Islam in relation to violence. This question turned out to be the most substantive one in the discussion that followed a background and content review of book at its presentation in Abuja attended mostly by journalists, academics and civil society activists. The 432 page book titled Understanding Community Resilience in the Context of Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria concluded that Nigeria as a whole is nowhere when it comes to the capacity of communities to resist criminality, terrorism, militancy or ruptures, in short and that the study of resilience in six states cutting across the northeast and the northwest by the research in the context of Boko Haram provides the mechanisms by which communities could and should protect themselves.

One of the questions asked in the aftermath of the briefing is whether Islam is not inherently violent in relation to other religions. This attracted three comments, two of them from professors of Political Science while the third is a co-editor of the new book. Of the two professors, one is a Christian while the other is a Muslim. All three cautioned against such claim if not in historical context of militancy or violence.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim who spoke last but who offered the most elaborate clarification said a lot of social and political factors come into play when we talk about religion and violence broadly, adding that what is most crucial in the case of Nigeria is that both Islam and Christianity have been undergoing internal transformation since the mid 1970s.

While this has taken the form of Pentecostal factionalisation in Christianity, it assumed the Izala challenge to Sufism in Islam, he said. “We are, therefore, living in a time when there have been transformation and religion has been the most active arena for activism”, Professor Ibrahim, an Anglican, said, pointing out how religion has become very crucial area for social mobility, from educational provisioning to employment. Noting how this is also happening at a time of state withdrawal from social services provisioning, Professor Ibrahim added how all these affect socialisation because young people who move out of mainstream Christianity or Islam almost always end up replacing the authority and wisdom of their parents with the wisdom and authority of their new religious faction or group and hence the possibility of their being directed along certain lines. Citing just two of such, he mentioned the tendency among certain Christians to reject medical attention or blood transfusion, concluding that the Nigerian society has allowed “the minority to take the upper hand on interpretation of religion”. He, therefore, called for spending more time on the Sociology of religion.

Professor Nuhu Yaqub, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja and immediate past Vice-Chancellor of Sokoto State University who also intervened in answering the question as to why Islam appears to be more violent argued against starting to compare which of Islam or Christianity is more violent. There is none of the two that preaches violence, he maintained, backing the statement up by saying that Islam which insists that God is with the person who is patient could not be a violent religion.

Contending that militancy in Islam should be placed squarely in their historical context, Professor Yaqub noted Muslims’ sense of being submerged by the West’s relationship with Islam. Like the Chinese, some Islamic civilisations such as Iran consider theirs to be old and resistant to impositions by looking for evidence of such, he pointed out, arguing that “some people use their frustration to react to what is happening around them”.

In his comment on the question, Mallam Y Z Y’au, Executive Director of the Centre for Information Technology and Development, (CITAD), the publishers of the book said the matter should be seen from the point that violence would always find a framework and the framework could be religion. But that, he said, does not mean that the religion which provides violence a framework is violent. He recalled a study by the United States Institute of Peace on why those who joined Boko Haram did so. The result showed that over 70 % of those who joined did so in terms of socio-economic reasons.

His explanation connects with one of the policy recommendations of the book in the content review he presented before the discussion session. That is the challenge of “people teaching what is not the religion at all” in schools partly because any Christopher Daniel in Nigeria is assumed to be capable of teaching Christianity just as any Garba Mohammed is also assumed to be competent to teach Islam. “Beyond regulating how people teach and practice religion, there must be scrutinising of what is taught”, he submitted.

Cardinal Onaiyekan

Cardinal John Onaiyekan, the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja would most likely agree with the immediate point above, having called attention to the problem of no one knowing the content of what multiples of religious leaders might be dishing out in the villages at a time all manner of people claim the status of religious leadership. Onaiyekan was speaking on June 13^th, 2017 at the Conference on Protection of Holy Sites organised by the peacebuilding INGO, Search for Common Ground, (SFCG).

Similarly, Ignatius Kaigama, the Bishop of Jos and President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria would most likely agree with Professor Jibrin Ibrahim in the light of his memorable warning at the Catholic Bishop’s Conference at Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Pro-Cathedral in February 2015. Insisting on avoidance of flamboyant spirituality and noisy liturgy in favour of “teaching the people values of internalised prayers from the heart” Bishop Kaigama warned against “market place prophecies and visions, charismatic display of talents and material salvation”. Emphasising sober Christianity without tricks, rhetoric, fanfare and the craze for social media publicity, the Bishop put the conquest of poverty and narrowing of the yawning gap between the rich and the poor as the core challenge for Christianity.

The categorical nature of his intervention as reported by the News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) speaks to the factionalisation Professor Ibrahim talked about in the case of Christianity. In the case of Islam, there might exist no better account than the documentation in Where I Stand, the joint autobiography of the late Sheikh Abubakar Gumi with Professor Ismaila Tsiga, published by Spectrum Books in 1992. Chapter Eleven of the book has been interpreted by some as a prediction of Boko Haram.

Even if only to the extent of the recommendation on checkmating the lack of centre of authority in religious teaching and practice, Understanding Community Resilience in the Context of Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria might have done its duty to the Nigerian State and humanity as far as use of religion by any violent group to legitimise violence is concerned. There are about six more such recommendations on building up resilience in the communities in the book.

Beyond the policy arena, the book provides the conceptual, theoretical and methodological jump off points for students of resilience in the social sciences in Nigeria as well as an African case study of resilience in the wider world. Resilience is, at the moment, a hotly contested concept in critical security studies where it has been dubbed the structural adjustment version of security provisioning – pushing that responsibility from the state to the people by naturalising such transfer in popular psychology. That is the debate this book might trigger in the Nigerian context where it is certain to be the first of such published material on the subject. It is published by CITAD, the Kano based knowledge NGO which has already published highly successful titles recently.

By Rita Michael, Bauchi

The Centre for Information Technology and Development, (CITAD) with support of the United State Institute for Peace (USIP) has made a presentation of a book on Community Resilence in the context of Boko Haram insurgency research as a key security strategy for the nation.

The research of the book, according to CITAD, was conducted in over 16 communities across six states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Kano and Jigawa .

The objective of the book was to understand what factors make communities more resilient to violent action and atrocities perpetrated by terrorists in the Northeast part of the country as well as enhancing communities capacity to bounce back from devastation.

While making a formal presentation of the book at the NUJ Press Centre in Bauchi on Thursday, the Head of Department of the Faculty of Arts of the Bauchi State University,  Dr Asabe Sadiya Mohammed, described community resilience as the ability of communities to rebound, maintain and strengthen thier functionality during and after a disturbance or to cope successfully in the face of extreme adversity or shock.

She said, “In this research, we focused on factors that make some communities able to resist, repel and recover from penetration by insurgents and their actions, involving the destruction and decimation of communities.

“In doing this, we looked at community agencies in the context of Boko Haram insurgency and attempt to answer key questions such as ” how do communities act in ways that build thier resilience to insurgency.”

Also, CITAD Research and Communication Assistant, Hamza Ibrahim Chinade, who spoke on outcomes of the research, explained that community resilence prospers when there is a robust community platform for active citizen participation and democratic decision-making which when absent breeds activities of insurgents.

He said, “Addressing challenges of unemployment and poverty, building a credible and acceptable leadership, strengthening community governance , addressing extreme social inequality, encouraging community policing were recommendations of the research to strengthen community resilience to Boko Haram.

By Sagiru Ado Abubakar.

The JOPIS Unit of the Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has on 2^nd July, 2017 organized sensitization lecture on N-Power Program for graduates in Kano State. JOPIS stands for Job Placement Information Services. Is a scheme by CITAD to assist youth looking for employment and entrepreneurship opportunities by bringing information about job opportunities to them. The sensitization lecture was organized in order to soften some issues marred the 2016 N-Power application in Kano State. It could be recalled that both people and Kano State government expressed concern over the low number of youth selected to participate in the Federal Government’s N-Power program last year. People were complaining that despite the fact that Kano is the most populous state in the country, N-Power data shown that over 20,000 youth from Kano State applied for the program in 2016 but only 4, 966 were selected.

At the beginning of the sensitization lecture, Sagiru Ado Abubakar, Head of the JOPIS Unit said that       N-Power is a Federal Government Program designed to tackle youth unemployment in the country. The N-Power Program involves massive deployment of 500,000 trained graduates who will assist to improve the inadequacies in the public services in education, health and civic education. The program was initiated by Federal Government considering current high level of unemployment, harnessing Nigeria’s young demography through appropriate skill development efforts to provide an opportunity to achieve inclusion and productivity within the country. In 2016, 200,000 graduates have been deployed to different governmental institutions for public services. The 2017 N-Power Program focuses on the remaining 300,000 vacant positions. While addressing the participants on the criteria for N-Power application, Sagir said that, Graduate Category- the N-Power Volunteer Corps is the post-tertiary engagement initiative for Nigerians between 18 and 35. It is a paid volunteering program of 2-year duration. The graduates must possess any post-tertiary qualification including an Ordinary National Diploma (OND), Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) and any Degree qualification as may be specified by the program. The successful applicants will undertake their primary tasks in identified public services within their proximate communities. Finally, he said that an N-Power volunteer Corps comprises 4 key areas, namely, N-Power Agro, N-Power Health, N-Power Teach and N-Power Tax.

Kamal Garba Alasan, Assistant Head of the JOPIS Unit, demonstrated to the participants the N-Power registration portal. During the demonstration, Kamal displayed the following as prerequisite for the      N-Power registration. First Name as shown on the BVN record, Middle Name as Shown on the BVN record, Last Name as shown on the BVN record, Gender, Marital status, Email, Phone number, Date of birth, Nationality, State of Origin, Local government, Residential Address, State of residence, Local government of residence, Nationality, BVN, Bank Account Number, Bank name,            and physical disability if any.

Other requirements were educational history of the applicants which included qualification, last institution attended, discipline, NYSC, and computer skill. Lastly, the participants were given chance to register N-Power Program free of charge at the center.

By Ali Sabo:

The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) conducted a research on Community Resilience in Boko Haram affected states between 2015-2016 with support from United State Institute for Peace (USIP). The purpose of the research was to investigate the factors that make communities vulnerable and more resilient to violent action carried out by the insurgents in the North-Eastern states and some part of North West and North Central states respectively, and to also examine the resilience mechanism of Jigawa State to Boko Haram attacks. And finally, the research seeks to draw lessons on how to deepen resilience and enhance community capacity to bounce back from trauma, destruction and damages caused by the insurgents. The study was also conducted within the context of a larger learning from peace theme whose goal was to find effective strategies to prevent mass violence in society.

Having undergone validation at different levels, the research has now been published as a book titled “Understanding Community Resilience in the Context of Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria”. To make it public and serve as a document that provides lessons to strong, weak and non affected communities, CITAD presents the book to the public at the presence of Journalists, academicians, Civil Society Organizations and Students. The launching took place on the 22nd of June, 2017 at the Board Room, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Federal University, Dutse.

The launching was facilitated by Ibrahim Mohammad Machina of the Federal University, Gashua who served as the presenter of the book, Malam Isah Garba, Senior Programme Officer (Peace) CITAD as the discussant and Dr. Dalhatu Yola as the chairman of the occasion. At the end of the programme questions were entertained from journalists and other participants at the event.

A report by an NGO, Center For Information Technology and Development (CITAD), has said there is increase in hate speech among Nigerians on social media.

CITAD Bauchi office Senior Programme Officer, Isah Garba, disclosed this while speaking at a press conference on ‘Monitoring and Countering Hate and Dangerous Speech’ in Bauchi yesterday, saying that CITAD with support from McArthur Foundation had carried out a survey using an automated online platform to monitor and counter hate and dangerous speeches online as well as monitor selected newspapers and other printed mediums and came up with a report. He said the report indicated that 60.3 percent of hate speeches recorded came from Facebook, 5.9 percent from newsletters and four percent from blogs surveyed within the period.

“In our report we found that 63 percent of the hate speakers are prominent people while 39 percent of them reported as non-prominent. This is also a serious issue of concern as the percentage of the prominent people making hate speeches is on the rise,” he said. The report shows that 35.2 percent of the hate speeches surveyed insults people for their religion; abuses people for their ethnic or linguistic affiliation; or express contempt against people because of their place of origin.

Wata Æ™ungiya mai taken Cibiyar bunÆ™asa fasahar sadarwa da ci gaban Æ™asa (CITAD) ta wallafa wani bincike kan yadda wasu al’ummomi a Najeriya suka yi nasarar wargaza aniyar Boko Haram na mamaye musu yankuna.

Binciken wanda aka shafe tsawon shekara biyu ana gudanarwa, ya gano cewa sai bango ya tsage Æ™adangare ke samun wurin shiga. Ya ce haÉ—in kai a tsakanin irin waÉ—annan al’ummomi ya zama babban makami na tunkarar Æ™ungiyar Boko Haram har ma da yin nasara a kanta.

Manufar binciken a cewar daraktan cibiyar, Yunusa Zakari Ya’u, ita ce kyautata haÉ—in kai tsakanin jama`a ta yadda za su guje wa faÉ—awa irin masifar da rikicin Boko Haram ya haddasa.

“Mun yi la’akari da cewa mutane ko kuma al’umma su ne ginshiÆ™in tsare kansu.”

Ya zayyana Æ™oÆ™arin al’ummomin garuruwa irinsu Biu da Gombi da Azare da unguwar Gwammaja a jihar Kano a matsayin abin misali ta fuskar wannan haÉ—in kai.

Hakkin mallakar hotoAP

Ya ce: “Idan ka É—auki waÉ—annan wajaje, wajaje ne da ko dai sun hana ‘yan Boko Haram su shigo su yi É“arnarsu, ko kuma lokacin da suka shigo an fatattake su, an kore su.”

A cewarsa sun kuma ga yankunan da ba su yi irin wannan jajircewa ba, lamarin da ya kai ga cin galaba a kansu.

“In ka É—auki su Mubi da Gwoza da Bama da Yadi Buni, waÉ—annan wajaje ‘yan Boko Haram sun shiga, wasu wajajen har sarakunansu ma suka gudu ba ma mutanen ba.”

Ya ce a duk lokacin da ka samu al’umma kanta ba haÉ—e yake ba, to ba za ta iya tunkarar masifa irinta Boko Haram ba.

Yunusa Ya’u ya ce a wasu wuraren, sun tarar cewa rashin haÉ—in kai tsakanin jami’an tsaro da al’umma ya haddasa ta’adi mafi muni daga Æ™ungiyar.

A cewarsa har yanzu, mutane ba su karÉ“i saÆ™on nan da ke cewa ‘É—an sanda abokin kowa’ ba. Hakan ta sa lokacin da Boko Haram ta fara kai hari kan jami’an tsaro wasu mutane a wasu wurare har murna suke yi.

Ya ce hakan ya sage gwiwar jami’an tsaron ta yadda a lokacin da Boko Haram ta auka wa mutanen gari, su ma jami’an tsaro “suka riÆ™a noÆ™ewa.”

“Idan ka É—auki Gwoza a jihar Borno, shi ne rabuwar kai kan bambancin addini wato tsakanin farko kowannensu yana ga idan Boko Haram ta auka wa wancan, ba shi akai wa ba, ba zai kawo gudunmawa ba. Daga baya dukkansu kuma wutar ta ci su.”

Haka kuma “A Bama, bambancin tsakanin É—ariÆ™oÆ™i ne, in ji Yunusa Ya’u.”

Don haka ya buÆ™aci gwamnati da al’umma su kyautata jajircewa don gudun kada masifa irinta Boko Haram ta zo ta shafe su.

BY Hamza Ibrahim Chinade.

The Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has between the year 2015 and 2016 conducted a research on community resilience in especially the Boko Haram insurgency ravaged region of North-East. The research which United States of Institute of Peace (USIP) supported aimed to investigate the factors that make communities more resilient to violent action and atrocities perpetrated by insurgents in the North-Eastern part of the country and draw lessons on how to deepen resilience and enhance community capacity to bounce back from devastation. The study was also conducted within the context of a larger learning from peace theme whose goal was to find effective strategies to prevent mass violence in society.

Having undergone validation at different levels, the research has now been published as a book titled “Understanding Community Resilience in the Context of Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria”. To make it public and serve as a document that provides lessons to strong, weak and non affected communities elsewhere, CITAD presents the book to the public before heavy media presence at the Aminu Kano Center for Democratic Research and Training (Mambayya House, Kano). Similar public presentations of the book are due to take place in Maiduguri, Dutse and Abuja respectively.

In his remarks, the chairman of the occasion, Malam Ibrahim Mu’azzam of Political Science Department, Bayero University Kano observes that there is no way communities can be secured without the stakeholders and the in the long run the stakeholders are the communities, as such less resilient communities ought to warmly embrace and learn from the lessons drawn from the research. Dr. Moses Aluaigba presented on “Understanding the Concept of Community Resilience” in which he began by defining community resilience as ability or capacity of the community, individual or organization to absorb the shocks arising from crisis or conflict that may come it’s way and come back to normalcy. He further expatiated on the concept citing different instances to paint a clear picture of the term.

To give an idea on what the book entails in a nutshell, Dr. Aminu Aliyu gave a review of the publication with gradual chapter by chapter treatment. The co-lead researcher and Executive Director of the Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) Y.Z. Ya’u led his audience into the key findings of the research pointing out how social cohesion in some communities has helped avert ambush by the insurgents. He said seventeen communities were studied across the states of the research. Bama and Gwoza towns lacked social cohesion, there was Muslim-Christian divide among residents of Gwoza, while the case of Bama was between Islamic sects (Izala and Tijjaniyya), there was also the issue of settler-indigene struggle, as a result they were badly shaken by the insurgents. But, in Biu and Gombi there was social cohesion, as a result they were able to resist or repel Boko Haram attacks, therefore, social cohesion and inclusion really helped the communities to be more resilient. The research also discovered that communities that have high unemployment rate tend to be weak and easily provide recruitment base for the insurgents. The book has a more comprehensive compilation of the findings and recommendations on community resilience; it was edited by Professor Jibrin Ibrahim, Chom Bagu and Y.Z. Ya’u.

A Najeriya, wasu masu fafutukar yaki da cin hanci a kasar sun bukaci mukaddashin shugaban kasa daya gaggauta fitar da rahoton daya bincike Babachir David Lawal, Sakataren gwamnatin da aka dakatar bisa zargin aikata almundahana.

Cibiyar bunkasa fasahar sadarwa da ci gaban al’umma ta CITAD da ke arewa maso gabashin Najeriya na daya daga cikin kungiyoyin da suka fara irin wannan kiraye kiraye.

Shugaban cibiyar Comrade Kabiru Sa’idu Dakata ya ce ‘yan Najeriya sun zura ido suga an fitar da sakamakon binciken inda ya ce Jama’a da dama musamman masu fafutukar yaki da cin hanci a kasar na ganin beken gwamnatin saboda kin mika rahoton.

A cewar su, rashin gabatar da rahoton ka iya sanya shakku a zukatan al’umma game da yaki da cin hanci da rashawa na gwamnatin kasar.

Tun da farko dai an tsara cewa kwamitin zai mika rahoton sa ne ranar 3 Mayu amma kuma aka dage zuwa ranar Litini 8 ga watan Mayu wanda kuma ba’a gabatar ba.

Kwamitin binciken da shugaba Muhammadu Buhari ya kafa dai ya hada da Farfesa Yemi Osinbajo, mataimakin shugaban kasar da mai baiwa shugaban kasa shawara kan harkar tsaro, Majo Janar Babagana Monguno mai ritaya da kuma babban lauyan Najeriya, Abubakar Malami.

From left-right: Dr. Moses Aluagba , Mal. Ibrahim Muazzam and Dr. Aminu Aliyu, during the public presentation of the book in Kano

Poor teaching of Christian and Islamic religions at school levels has been blamed for the proliferation of hate speeches across the adherents of the two dominant religions in the country.

Executive Director Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), Y. Z. Ya’u made the observation in Kano while answering questions at  the public presentation of the book titled ‘’Understanding community resilience in the context of Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria’’ by CITAD in collaboration with the United States Institute of Peace.

He said one of the things that weakens ‘’social cohesion’’ being one of the mechanisms for confronting aggressive tendencies at community levels is the element of hate speeches exchanged among the adherents of the two faiths.

He said ‘’labelling adherents of a particular faith as infidels (arna) and those of the other faith as Boko Haram or jihadists needs to be taken serious. We need to think about those terms that set us apart. We should think about communication that eliminates the walls that divide us.

‘’We should also think about the way we even teach our religions. It has been observed that both Christian Religious Knowledge and Islamic Religious Studies are taught by people who do not even understand the religions. Once there is no properly qualified person you say ah! Your name is Aminu come and teach Islamic studies, your name is Joseph come and teach CRK. We have people who do not understand religion training our own children’’ he lamented.

He called for synergy between security agencies and the public through sharing of relevant information to be able to fight insurgency and other similar acts of terrorism in the country to a logical conclusion.

He emphasised that some communities in the North East were able to withstand the insurgents’ attack because they were able to rally round each other on trust irrespective ethno-religious differences.

He urged Nigerians to be security conscious and to always live in peace and harmony with one another irrespective of the etho-religious differences.

Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), a Northern Nigeria-based non-governmental organisation, has condemned in strong terms the recent eviction order given by a coalition of northern youth associations to the Igbos residing in the northern part of the country. CITAD described the call for the relocation of the Igbos as falling into the category…

Research has shown that Boko Haram succeeded in running over several communities in the North East mostly because of the absence of functional surveillance and monitoring mechanism.

This was disclosed, on Wednesday, in Gombe, during a public policy dialogue on community resilience organized by the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), with members of the Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCNI) in attendance.

Executive director of the centre, Y.Z Ya’u further disclosed that the research, which was part of efforts to find solution to the conflict as well as to prevent future occurrence of similar conflicts, was conducted in over 16 communities across four states namely; Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno and Yobe.

He explained that the research was conducted specifically to understand what makes communities to withstand and repel attacks by the insurgents, as well as why such communities succumb by giving the insurgents space to operate.

“This policy brief is the distillation of the key findings around the key factors that constitute community resilience and what can be done to activate them or to otherwise enhance them,” Ya’u said.

The lead researcher, Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim identified the absence of a functional surveillance and monitoring mechanism in communities where the Boko Haram was able to over run.

He pointed out that while some communities were completely overtaken and subdued by the insurgents, “some were able to bounce back after the shock to reestablish some normality.”

Prof. Ibrahim explained that community resilience, which entails the capacity of communities to adapt when faced with hazards, constitutes a major factor in protecting communities against insurgency.

While noting that with the already bad situation in the region worsened by the Boko Haram insurgency, he pointed out that, “there’s meaninglessness to bounce back to the status of the poorest country in the world.”

He explained further that addressing the issues affecting the region goes beyond stopping the insurgency and rehabilitating the people but “understanding the evolving dynamics of social cohesion which has broken down in the region.”

Prof. Ibrahim recommended recognized roles for traditional rulers who he described as instruments for higher resilience in communities.

Earlier, co-chairman of the PCNI, Alhaji Tijjani Musa Tumsa, commended CITAD for conducting the research, adding that the outcome of the exercise would provide his organization with new input towards curbing insurgency in the North East.

By Bashir Mohammed
Kano

Senior Programme Officer, Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), Malam Kabiru Saidu Dakata, has called on youths in the country to close rank and fight a common course to proof relevance in the nation’s political lexicon.
Speaking yesterday at a one-day sensitisation workshop organised by the Centre in Kano, Dakata said Nigeria as a developing country, was in the past ruled by youths, who at their tender ages had performed wonders to the satisfaction of everyone.

Citing the example of Gowon, Maitama Sule, Shagari, Tafawa Balewa,  Mbu and others to buttress his point, the CITAD Programme Officer maintained that both men had achieved greatness by proving their mettle,  while on their teens and wondered why the youths of today could not persevere to achieve a similar feat.

He pointed out that nothing was “impossible in the current drive to achieve the goal of an all encompassing inclusion in the business of politics and governance by youths taking the gauntlet, if they widely agreed to close rank in achieving a common goal”, adding that the spirit of patriotism and nationalism was what had inspired youths of the yesteryears to make considerable headway.
He said the issue of godfatherism and certain legal impediments had been the major albatross in the struggle by youths to prove their relevance and indispensability in the business   of politics and governance.
Dakata said this was pushing them to the lower rung of the ladder in the nation’s scheme of things, stressing that the youths themselves had lacked the self-confidence  and unity to face the challenge squarely.

He, however, stated that in countries like France, United States, South Africa and other notable African countries,  youths had considerably enjoyed the legal leverage to participate in politics and be voted into prominence positions.
Speaking earlier, a Programme Coordinator, Centre for Information Technology and Development, Malam Isiyaku Garba, said the one-day sensitisation workshop, was conceived to expose youths and notable political actors to the nitty-gritty of changing the status quo in the quest to make the business of politics and governance dominated by youths.

By Bashir Mohammed
Kano

Centre For Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has organised a one-day capacity building workshop for members of Peace Clubs in Kano drawn from some selected secondary and colleges with the aim of brainstorming on ways of sending messages to contain hate messages.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the workshop which was held at the Conference Hall of Conference of CITAD in Kano yesterday, CITAD’s Executive Director, Dr. Yunusa Zakari Yau, said the workshop had become imperative in view of the disturbing cases of hate speeches posing a threat to the corporate existence of the nation.

He said the one-day capacity building workshop, was the first of its kind organised by CITAD considering the pressing need for having a platform that “can be used in enhancing students’ writing skills and creativity on literary work in form of composing a poem that would send clear messages on how to live in peace and harmony with one another.”
He said CITAD had expanded the scope and areas to be covered by the capacity building workshop, adding that the workshop was holding in Yobe, Jigawa, Bauchi, Katsina and other states considered to be catchment areas, stressing that the  alarming spate of hate was what had prompted CIITAD to swing into action.

Mallam YZ Y’au

The assumption here is that the reader must have read the first part of this report on how the ‘Civil Society Consultative Forum on Internet Code of Practice for Nigeria’ went on June 8^th, 2017 in Abuja and this second part is simply rolling on. In what ways are women discriminated against in terms of utilisation of the internet? This was actually the first question posed to Prof Dada and it was by a young woman journalist. It is only coming at this stage of the report, preceded by the themes of rural internet and the internet-security nexus because Prof Dada pushed the question to CITAD Executive Director whose response came way down. In doing so, it is either that Prof Dada did not want to entangle himself in wider gender politics or did so out of awareness that the CITAD boss was among the big masquerades beating the ideological drums to which the defunct Women in Nigeria, (WIN) was gyrating until a strange consciousness seized the organization mid 1990s, problematising male membership. Whichever of the two plausible reasons apply, Y’au told the audience when he took the floor that a study by CITAD had shown less women online when compared to men and that there are many reasons for that.

The most obvious explanation, according to him, is cultural. That is the cultural imagination of the woman as a strange presence in the public sphere. He illustrated this reality with the example of women who have been divorced because they have been seen on facebook.

Two, every technology comes with its skills requirement. For the internet, the skills requirement is the gamut of digital literacy but which men have more chances of acquiring than women because of the spatial division of labour that underline gender inequality. Three, men are also better placed in terms of affordability which is a function of life chances broadly. He recalls the slogan about poverty having a woman face because more women are poor. Fourth explanation has to do with how the internet is used – men are not subjected to sexual harassment online as much as women are, for example, by blackmailers loading a woman’s picture onto the facebook or the net. To avoid such situations especially in our kind of society, some women avoid the internet entirely. Finally, women are over burdened. They are caregivers to children and husband, many of them combine that with working life, they handle domestic chores and manage the kitchen which is at the heart of the conventional family. The combined effect of these leave them with little or no time left to engage with technology, especially the internet.

His conclusion is that women are thus a special class of the marginalised in relation to accessing the internet. This is not only in Nigeria but Africa wide and global because, except the Scandinavian countries – Sweden, Norway and Denmark, very few other countries have overcome the women question. As such, dealing with Internet Code of Practice in Nigeria requires ensuring digital literacy for women and guaranteeing a privacy regime for women.

Mrs Mary Iduma, a former NCC Director and now the Chairperson of the Nigeria as well as West African Internet Governance Forum took her turn to present the second background paper. Hers was on the Internet Governance Forum as a layer in the governance ensemble around the internet. It is a policy dialogue platform for stakeholders, she said, meaning that they do not deal with treaties. Instead of dabbling into hard or soft legalisation, they jaw-jaw around thematic areas of trade and every other economic activities that define the internet economy; the management of critical internet resources; inclusiveness – dealing with women, disabled, the aged and new language such as digital natives, digital migrants, etc; diversity; enhancing multi-stakeholder communities – from academics to business to civil society; cyber – security; internet eco-system and, lastly, emerging issues such as big data.

What may be regarded as the second segment of her presentation was where she applied this broad framework to Nigeria, generating questions and controversies on issues as varied as what conception of human rights should be acceptable to Nigeria, is Nigeria for Net neutrality; have policy makers accepted Zero rating and how can Africa deal with it? For her, Africa would not accept zero rating because not much is being uploaded from Africa as much as the so much downloading going on. So, accepting zero rating would squeeze Africa’s traffic.

What of net neutrality? Is Nigeria for or against it? Net neutrality means no discrimination against anything on the net. Theoretically, the internet is supposed to be a wonderland where you can fetch or deposit whatever, including pornography and obscenity. How should Nigeria deal with that? What about human rights in relation to the internet?

How does Africa fare in the great power politics around the internet?

Sensing the elastic nature of these category of questions, Yakubu Aliyu, the Chairperson intervened to remind the audience of the topic of a recent engagement: “Rethinking African Culture in the Age of Internet”. For him, if Nigeria/Africa and nobody actually can control the internet, then it is up to us to come from the other side in terms of how much space Africa can occupy. That way, the question is reduced to something more manageable.

It turned out to be a discerning intervention in view of the observable dichotomy gradually building up in the room between the communalists and the liberal divide as always in the politics of human rights in Africa. What was left was to summaries the day.

In doing that, CITAD boss said it had been a great day because a number of crucial ideas had come to the fore, including the unanticipated slogan “.ng is our (Nigeria) currency in the cyberspace”, how good it is to use it, especially that it is cheaper than others. A summary of what emerged as the key issues of concern would be produced and circulated, including to stakeholders who did not attend the session, he said. It is the clean document from that phase that would make its way to the NCC as the civil society’s shopping list as far as internet code of practice in Nigeria is concerned.