UMAR ALH MALLAM

With regard to the thematic focal I choose which is countering violent extremism in north east and promoting religious tolerance in north eastern part of Nigeria.

Firstly, let me talk about countering violent extremism in north east. Violent extremism is not a new phenomenon, but the traditional response to it has been limited to counterterrorism efforts by military and government authorities. As a result, there has been no space for an active role for civil society, even if there can and should be. Countering violent extremism, as a public-private partnership, is a new approach.

It is growing in fits and starts—with reluctant acceptance compounded by limited research and funding constraints—and the unwillingness of many to change the status quo. The need to move past these manageable constraints has never been more acute. The tragic incidents in north eastern part of Nigeria have shown us that we need to reformulate our counterterrorism paradigm to one that involves prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation.

There is a lot of talk about countering violent extremism: It has been on the forefront of the Nigerian domestic counterterrorism agenda and north east they will meet from this program. But, like terrorism, the term has no universally accepted definition despite the fact that it is included in policy directives across the world and condemning violent extremism. I define “countering violent extremism” as: “the use of non-coercive means to dissuade individuals or groups from mobilizing towards violence and to mitigate recruitment, support, facilitation or engagement in ideologically motivated terrorism by non-state actors in furtherance of political objectives.”

This “means” can typically be broken down into four intersecting parts: preventing radicalization, intervening on behalf of individuals who have radicalized, interdicting or finding and prosecuting those who have engaged in criminal behavior, and reintegrating into society those offenders who are in prison, have served their term, or are returning from conflict zones.

Globally, there are hundreds of counter extremism programs. In many countries, practitioners focus on strengthening communities to reduce their vulnerability towards radicalization.

The emphasizes prevention and interdiction. But there are very few countries that have programs addressing all four aspects—especially intervention and reintegration.

As a result of this gap, individuals who have begun to radicalize are not turned around and those who have acted violently are not rehabilitated.

Building Trust among the People Affected

When it comes to prevention and intervention, government agencies together with non-governmental agencies consider community engagement to be synonymous with countering violent extremism, to the exclusion of other programming. This narrow understanding of countering violent extremism assumes that if all at-risk people had a better relationship with the government, they would be less inclined to commit acts of terrorism. Government agencies seem to think so, but sometimes such engagement only makes communities feel targeted. If an environment of trust does not exist already, it needs to be cultivated before sensitive topics like radicalization can be discussed. However, building trust with communities by talking to only (sometimes self-proclaimed) community leaders is not enough. Those who have been willing to speak with government agencies do not usually represent the people that would be considered “at-high risk.” The communities that are least inclined to engage are often the ones that need the outreach the most.

Community policing

Another aspect of countering violent extremism is community policing, which involves establishing partnerships with neighborhoods to involve them in problem solving to enhance public safety. This technique was once heralded as a silver bullet. But, in practice, there is no consistent understanding or implementation of such a strategy across the country.

Many police departments consider community policing as an avenue for finding informants to help detect rather than prevent criminal activity. As the responsibility for counterterrorism has shifted (or is now being shared) from the federal level to the local levels, local law enforcement officials have been encouraged to gather intelligence, which only undermines the initiatives aimed at fostering community trust. Meanwhile, federal law enforcement, which conducts most of the country’s terrorism investigations, is often the outfit least trusted by communities precisely because of how it collects information.

Community policing also incorrectly assumes that geographically defined and connected communities exist. In large urban areas, neighbors do not always know one another, and there are also no clear guidelines on what constitutes suspicious activity under the “See Something, Say Something” campaigns.

To establish a sound relationship between prevention, law enforcement, and the community, leadership and community outreach units at some of the larger FBI field offices need to be reformed. For example, some field offices frequently reassign their staff, resulting in new faces nearly every two years. By the time the field officers have fostered ties with the community, it is time for them to take on a different role. In addition, community outreach is still one-sided: It depends on whether the leadership at the local field office has made community engagement a priority. Essentially, there is an uneven relationship in which one side calls all the shots regarding the frequency and nature of interactions with the community. Finally, there are no incentives to engage in counter-violent extremist activities since more often than not, an agent is rewarded for catching a terrorist rather than for preventing and dissuading someone from becoming one. This too must change. But it requires extensive training and attitude shifts across law enforcement agencies.

Counter-messaging

One of the cornerstones of countering violent extremism is the use of public communication tools to dissuade its supporters. These accounts have limited dialogue and can legally only target accounts from outside the country.

Counter-extremism narratives must address the political grievances wrapped in ideological language, some of which are legitimate even if others might not be. The objective of counter-extremism messaging should be to dissuade people from supporting violence, not to defend policy choices made by lawmakers and politicians. This messaging is best done by non-government actors, but they are unfortunately few and far between.

Meanwhile, the voices behind those messages need to be diverse and they need to be amplified. They need to be running active campaigns to disrupt extremism narratives and provide resonant alternatives. And they need to be tagging offensive recruitment content for removal. Needless to say, social media platforms provide the most uncontested space for extremism recruiters. So government should aggressively suspend accounts of individual or group of people involved in.

Provision of counseling services

Social and spiritual counseling can be a viable option but few communities have counselors trained in methods to psychologically extract youth from terrorist groups.

There is a growing need to formalize public–private partnerships and build intervention teams where psychologists, social workers, educators, counselors, clergy, and families can be assembled to create strategies for dealing with individual cases.

Furthermore, Nigeria recently offers de-radicalization programs for those who have already committed extremist violence. Imprisoning convicted violent extremists without rehabilitation is an incomplete solution; it is merely deferring a problem that will worsen over time. Although rehabilitation programs are resource intensive—and there is of course no guarantee of a perfect success rate for such programs—the consequences of failing to do anything are huge as younger and younger people become radicalized, commit crimes, and are sent to jail.

By provision of fund to the counter terrorist program

One of the questions practitioners often get asked is why the community does not step up and do something about violent extremism.

The biggest problem is a lack of funding for the programs that focus on prevention and intervention. Although federal government funding is available for law enforcement training and countering violent extremism research, there are no grants available for community-led programs. State and local governments have some funds for prevention programs, but they are very limited. Foundations are loath to step outside their missions and support countering violent extremism programs since they traditionally fall under the purview of counter terrorism. At a government-convened forum that included a handful of trusted practitioners, some of the largest philanthropic organizations responded with a categorical “No” when asked to give money. Some large corporations are starting to provide training and access to their services and facilities, but no one is willing to run or sponsor initiatives yet.

To highlight the scale of the resources needed (and that are not available), let us look at what is involved in implementing one of the more straightforward counter-violent extremism programs: workshops to raise awareness of violent extremism and online radicalization and help families intervene. Covering even a fraction of at-risk communities would take tens of thousands of workshops per year. To be effective, people need to hear the message more than once. To truly confront violent extremism and prevent extremist groups from preying on at-risk youth, tens of thousands workshops need the requisite funding. They cannot be run as free or voluntary services. Expecting members of a specific faith community to become experts in radicalization and violent extremism so they can effectively do extremism prevention training is naïve and impractical.

UMAR ALH MALLAM

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Monday 29 May 2017

Peace is the backbones of any existing country

Tuesday 31 January 2017

THE WAY FORWARD TO COUNTER TERRORISM IN NORTH EASTERN PART OF NIGERIA

Wednesday 20 July 2016

lectures commence

Thursday 22 October 2015

umar: hi i hope your doing fine