Abuja – Dr Garba Abari, Director General, National Orientation Agency, (NOA) has called for update on the humanitarian requirements for abandoned young persons in the North East.
Abari made the remark in a statement signed by Mr Paul Odenyi, Head of Press Unit, NOA, in Abuja on Monday.
Abari, said this when the British High Commission’s Head of Counter-Terrorism, Mr James McCormick paid a courtesy visit to NOA to seek collaboration on strategic communication towards countering violent extremism in Nigeria.
He said in February, as many as 49,000 orphans had been picked up by the authorities in Borno and Yobe States with the possibility of higher numbers as the military continued to clear the camps.
He said the Agency was following up on its counter-terrorism interventions by developing a counter-extremism narrative to discourage young people in the North East from engaging in acts of terror.
Abari, said that NOA had trained the media on reporting peace building processes and had intensified its peace building advocacy while using its Local Government Assembly platform to get Nigerians to dialogue for peaceful coexistence.
The NOA boss said the Agency had overcome initial challenges posed by disagreeing Sunni Islamic sects in Borno and Yobe areas over cooperation in developing the narrative.
He added that the groups were now working together to adopt a common narrative which would be finalised soon.
In his remark, McCormick said that the United Kingdom had lessons to learn from Nigeria in the face of recent terror attacks in Britain and was willing to share experience based on ideas with Nigeria.
McCormick said the UK had also learnt the importance of inter-agency cooperation in countering violent extremism which he described as a strong point in Nigeria’s counter-terrorism fight.
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