The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, has inaugurated a student group to counter violent extremist and insurgency ideologies as part of a non-kinetic approach to combating ideological-based terrorism in the North-East region.
Speaking at a one-day multi-sector conference in Maiduguri, Borno State, the CDS charged students, youths, and the civilian populace to utilize social media to counter ideologies promoting terrorism and criminalities that threaten the nation’s corporate existence.
The conference, themed “Countering Extremist Ideology, Insurgency, and Terrorism in the Northeast,” follows the launch of the Students Against Violent Extremism (SAVE 1&2) project for students of secondary schools, tertiary institutions, and youths in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States.
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General Musa emphasized the need to recruit youths and students at an early stage to champion counter-insurgency ideologies as a component of the non-kinetic approach to security.
He charged the youth to be non-combatant soldiers by ensuring intelligence-driven engagement with the troops of the Nigerian armed forces while using social media to drive home peace and counter-insurgency advocacy.
The CDS also launched a book titled “Taking A Stand Against Insurgency and Terrorism Among Others,” which he authored.
After the inauguration, General Musa visited wounded troops at the Maimalari military hospital, where a philanthropist made donations to the wounded heroes and pledged to build houses for them.
Student representatives and youth groups from Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa States were inaugurated into the SAVE teams 1 and 2 and were urged to be ambassadors of peace across the states.
