CITAD Organises Inter-School Debate On Counter Terrorism

By Francis Okoye.

The Centre for Information Technology And Development (CITAD) has organized inter-tertiary institutions students debate in the terror-stricken west and central African countries to create  broad ideas as a veritable source for governments and other stakeholders formulating counter- insurgency and counter-terror policies.

A senior programme officer with the Centre, Isa Garba, disclosed this to newsmen at the end of the inter-tertiary institutions students debate between the University of Maiduguri and Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri on counter-insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin, which held in Maiduguri at the weekend.

He said, at the national level, the debate, which was already held in Adamawa, would also be held in Yobe.

Mr Garba said the essence of the debate was not to produce winners or losers, but to generate ideas from the principal actors and the main source of recruitment for terror and insurgency, the youth in tertiary institutions, on counter-insurgency.

“The winners from each of the three states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe will represent their respective states at the North-East regional debate; and the winners from this regional level will represent the country at the Grand Sahel Debate involving Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Mali, which would be held at one of the sahelian countries,” he said.

In the Maiduguri debate jointly organised by CITAD and the Northeast Regional Initiative (NERI), the University of Maiduguri participants debated on free education for the IDPs, while their Ramat Polytechnic counterpart dwelt on ways of countering insurgency.