By Sumaila Ogbaje
The National Coordinator, National Counter Terrorism Centre, Office of the National Security Adviser (NCTC-ONSA), retired Rear Adm. Yaminu Musa, has urged Nigerian youths to see themselves as critical instruments of stability.
Musa made the call at the Youth, Peace, and Security Summit, organised by the NCTC-ONSA, in collaboration with Mercy Corps on Wednesday, in Abuja.
He said that empowering young leaders was an investment in the nation’s security and development.
Musa added that the summit was a crucial step towards harnessing the potentials of young people and building a more peaceful and just Nigeria.
According to him, youth restiveness poses a serious problem to peace and development and there is a need for collective actions to curb this menace.
“ The Community Initiative to Promote Peace CIPP) is committed to inclusion and strengthening of youths’ capacity in peace-building processes at all level.
“The country demographic youth bulge among other factors makes youths critical stakeholder that needs to be positively harnessed than being exploited for critical role in the incessant violent /criminalities activities along religious and ethnic lines.
“It is based on this that, the FGN’s stance on counter-terrorism measures evolved and focused on policies and strategies aimed at addressing root causes of violent extremism from bottom up,’’ he said.
The NCTC boss said it was expected that the summit would provide a platform for knowledge sharing and cross-fertilisation of ideas around youths, peace and security.
He added that the summit would also provide useful platform for vertical and horizontal linkage of youth-led organisations to relevant institutions and stakeholders.
In his remarks, the Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, Mr David Greene, said there had been collaborative relationships with the NCTC across the range of their issue areas.
Greene condemned the recent killings in Plateau, adding that the summit was intended towards preventing such kind of tragedy in the future.
“And that is why we consider it so important and so essential that this would be done and that it would be sustained.
“So, I express my heartfelt condolences for the loss of lives and I hope that those responsible will be held accountable and that project like this will help address these kinds of challenges in the future.
“Because those attacks are, of course, a very sad reminder of how violence steals the lives of loved ones and degrades the strength of our communities,’’ he said.
Greene said that organised violence, whether it is kidnappings for ransom, terrorism, criminality or resource disputes, was reported on a near daily basis across Nigeria as a tragedy.
He said it was important that all stakeholders work across divides to address the drivers of violence considering the potential wealth and human talent in the country and that painful incidents._
According to him, an overarching aim of the U.S. mission in Nigeria is to help save lives, alleviate the sufferings from most homes while helping the Nigerian people.
He said the mission had invested and would continue to invest millions of dollars out of the billions that it invested in a range of development priorities across Nigeria. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Benson Iziama/Isaac Aregbesola