Government Efforts at Tackling Insurgency I wish to catalogue here efforts made so far to deal with the insurgency. Terrorism has come with both challenges and opportunities. It has enabled us to change our laws, rebuild our institutions, and create platforms for greater coordination and cooperation within and across agencies tasked with security. Additionally we have developed avenues that allow us to synergise our efforts and work more collaboratively with the civil society. In short we have devised a national security model that is inclusive, premised on the provision, of peace, security and development, through a whole of society approach. It is important to remember that all these changes have happened in the span of a few years since the start of Boko Haram’s virile attacks, but they often go unnoticed. When we started to deal with the Boko Haram threat, our laws were not so clear on a number of fundamentals. Through the Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Act 2013, significant progress has been made. It has allowed us to not only define terrorism, but block avenues of financing for their activities while putting in place structures to deal with our current threats. This has included the establishment of a Counter terrorism Centre and, working with key stakeholders, we have developed a National Counter Terrorism Strategy (NACTEST). The NACTEST is new and is the first major attempt by the government of Nigeria to holistically address the terror attacks that are being perpetrated by violent extremists. As a sub-set of the overarching National Security Strategy, it holds a strong promise for Nigerians and seeks to re-engage a stakeholder population that is losing or may have lost faith in ongoing efforts aimed at addressing threats. The strategy explains what organisations and individuals can do to help in its implementation in order to reduce the risks and ensure that people go about their lives freely and with confidence.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 04:53:55 +0000
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