By Yahaya Isah
Abuja – The office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) on Tuesday said it was partnering with the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme (NSRP) to prevent and counter violent extremism in the country.
The Coordinator, Counter Terrorism Centre (CTC) of ONSA, Commodore Yem Musa, said this while presenting a paper during validation meeting with the members of the two organisations and conveying the message of the NSA to the members
Musa said that the message was on the Policy Framework and National Action Plan for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism in the country.
He said that in August 2016, the working group of the organisation served as a broad-based consultative and multi-stakeholders platform for countering violent extremism in the country.
“I am pleased to convey that the approach we opted for has resulted in a framework and National Action Plan for Preventing and countering violent Extremism in the country.
“The framework was as a result of the combined efforts of the partnership between the two organisations,” he said.
Musa said that for the two organisations to be effective in formulating framework to prevent violent extremism, they constituted a Technical Team comprising consultants and personnel from ONSA and NSRP.
This, he said, had succeeded in addressing local peculiarities in addressing the threat of violent extremism.
He said that the validation meeting had become critical to gaining input from the working group on the draft framework and on areas that required improvement.
The coordinator explained that all these efforts were geared toward preventing and countering violent extremism in the country.
The Deputy Programme Manager-Resuits, NSRP, Mrs Priscilla Ankut, said the partnership had become imperative bearing in mind the challenges the country was facing in recent times.
Ankut explained that NSRP was a peace building programme set up mainly for conflict resolution in the country and beyond.
She said ONSA had been one of their strategic partners in the last four and a half years, working on issues on violent management and conflict resolution.
The deputy programme manager expressed confidence that the partnership would go a long way in preventing and countering violent extremism in the country.
