By Francis Okoye.

The Centre for Information Technology And Development (CITAD) has organized inter-tertiary institutions students debate in the terror-stricken west and central African countries to create  broad ideas as a veritable source for governments and other stakeholders formulating counter- insurgency and counter-terror policies.

A senior programme officer with the Centre, Isa Garba, disclosed this to newsmen at the end of the inter-tertiary institutions students debate between the University of Maiduguri and Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri on counter-insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin, which held in Maiduguri at the weekend.

He said, at the national level, the debate, which was already held in Adamawa, would also be held in Yobe.

Mr Garba said the essence of the debate was not to produce winners or losers, but to generate ideas from the principal actors and the main source of recruitment for terror and insurgency, the youth in tertiary institutions, on counter-insurgency.

“The winners from each of the three states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe will represent their respective states at the North-East regional debate; and the winners from this regional level will represent the country at the Grand Sahel Debate involving Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Mali, which would be held at one of the sahelian countries,” he said.

In the Maiduguri debate jointly organised by CITAD and the Northeast Regional Initiative (NERI), the University of Maiduguri participants debated on free education for the IDPs, while their Ramat Polytechnic counterpart dwelt on ways of countering insurgency.

By Hammangabda, Yola.

The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), has organized an advocacy debate among students of tertiary institutions as strategy to end insurgency in Adamawa state.

The executive director of CITAD, Mr Yunus Zakari, while declaring the maiden debate open in Yola, said the debate was organized to provide the youths a platform to discuss and proffer solutions to the insurgency crisis in the North-East region.

The participating institutions were: Moddibo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State University, Mubi, and Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, in collaboration with the  North East Regional Initiative (NERI).

Zakari said similar discussion would be organized for students in Borno and Yobe states, adding that there is plan to extend it to students in neigbouring countries of Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

Earlier, Adamawa Programme Manager of NERI, Mr Machill Maxwell, said NERI has been supporting interventions in areas ravaged by insurgency and such positive mobilization of the youths was one of such supports

“This is one of our soft activities where people are encouraged to sit together and talk and come up with ideas on how  to find solutions to the crisis that has bedeviled the North East.

By Uthman Abubakar, Maiduguri.

The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) is to organise Inter-tertiary institutions students debate in the terror-stricken west and central African countries to create a broad ideas bank as a veritable source for governments and other stakeholders formulating counterinsurgency and counter-terror policies.

A senior programme officer with the Centre, Isa Garba, disclosed this to newsmen at the end of the inter-tertiary institutions students debate between the University of Maiduguri and Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri on counterinsurgency in the Lake Chad Basin, which held in Maiduguri at the weekend.

“The essence of the debate is not to produce winners or losers, but to generate ideas from the principal actors and the main source of recruitment for terror and insurgency, the youth in tertiary institutions, on counterinsurgency,” the CITAD senior official said.