From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Civil society group, Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Knowledge Innovation and Resource Hub (PCVE-KIRH), has outlined how insecurity and violent extremism could be put to an end in the North West and the country in general.
The Chairman of the group, Jaye Gaskia, a veteran civil society leader, warned that insecurity in the North-West and across the country would persist unless the country tackled the root causes of violent extremism.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1718806029429-0’); });
This was even as stakeholders in the fight against violent extremism have identified poor governance, poverty, inequality, and lack of community resilience as the major factors fueling insecurity in the region and other parts of the country.
The Chairman, Jaye Gaskia, and the National Coordinator of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), Geneva, Yetunde Adegoke, spoke separately with newsmen in Kaduna yesterday at the end of a one-day Media Engagement on Promoting PCVE and Stakeholders’ Initiatives in the North-West.
It has as its theme: “Amplifying voices for peace: media partnerships in PCVE and resilience-building.”
The engagement organized in collaboration with the Office of the National Security Adviser(ONSA )and ActionAid Nigeria, with funding from the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, GCERF, brought together journalists, civil society organisations, focused on strengthening partnerships to tackle extremist ideologies, improve governance, and amplify peace narratives in communities vulnerable to extremist recruitment.
According to him, extremist groups thrive in areas where governance structures are weak and citizens feel abandoned.
“At the base of this crisis, really, the reason why violent extremist groups and leaders gain support and are able to mobilise teeming masses of people into their ranks can essentially be traced back to the failure of governance and dysfunctional governance,” he said.
He listed rampant poverty, deepening inequality, historical grievances between communities, and the collapse of education as some of the factors creating fertile ground for radicalisation.
“You have children being raised with no sense of future, no jobs, and no basic services. All that is needed is a charismatic leader to emerge and mobilise them,” he added.
Gaskia said the PCVE Network was working with governments and communities in the North-West to develop state and local action plans against violent extremism, stressing that solutions must be holistic and not limited to military deployments.
“If our approach is simply law enforcement — deploy the police, deploy the military — but people still cannot get jobs, cannot be educated, cannot access healthcare or housing, then we are not addressing the problem. We are simply wasting money on law enforcement,” he warned.
The PCVE chairman argued that lasting peace could only be achieved if governance was strengthened at the grassroots.
He urged Nigerians to take more interest in state electoral processes to ensure credible leadership at the local government level.
“We are advocating for reforming and enabling local governance, strengthening local governments, ensuring local government autonomy.
“Credible persons must emerge from council elections, and communities must be empowered to take ownership of peacebuilding efforts,” he said.
He also called for regional approaches to insecurity, saying isolated efforts by individual states would not yield sustainable solutions.
“We want governors and state governments to work together so that they address not just the security impact but also the underlying causes,” he said.
On her part, Adegoke said the Geneva-based GCERF had been working in Nigeria since 2016 to strengthen resilience against extremist recruitment, particularly among women and youth.
“Our aim is basically to build the resilience of communities to prevent recruitment into violent extremist groups,” she explained.
“We do this by providing grants to civil society to work primarily at the community level, specifically with women and youth, to resist the pull factors of violent extremism.”
She said GCERF had supported non-governmental organisations piloting interventions in North-Central and North-West states but was now moving to scale up those interventions in partnership with the Office of the National Security Adviser.
According to her, the ongoing review of Nigeria’s Policy Framework and National Action Plan (PFNAP) for preventing and countering violent extremism provides an opportunity for a more systematic and coordinated approach.
“Our aim is to support ONSA through PAVE and the Citizens’ Knowledge Hub to ensure innovative solutions are integrated into local and state action plans. Through this, we hope to achieve a coordinated regional and eventually national approach to preventing violent extremism,” she said.
She described engagement as “the beginning of a new phase,” noting that the media had a critical role to play in mainstreaming discussions on security and amplifying solutions rather than just reporting violent incidents.
“We are hoping that through this type of activity, these partnerships will be strengthened and become vehicles for collective action. We want to begin to see security and solutions to violent extremism becoming part of mainstream dialogue on different media platforms,” she added.
Both Adegoke and Gaskia agreed that the media must work closely with civil society to shape narratives that counter extremist propaganda.
They argued that informed and responsible reporting would not only enlighten the public but also help communities see themselves as stakeholders in peacebuilding.
Gaskia added, “We want our relationship with the media to no longer be transactional but a partnership where we see violent extremism as a collective problem we must all address.
The post How to end insecurity, extremism in N’West – Civil society leader appeared first on The Sun Nigeria.
