A number of staff and students of Nile University of Nigeria’s Faculty of Management Sciences attended a public lecture held by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) at the Shehu Yar'Adua Centre, Abuja, on October 31. The event was themed “Extremism: A threat to National Unity.” Notable speakers at the event included Dr. Hauwa Lamino Abubakar, Mr. Lai Mohammed (Minister of Information and Culture), to name a few.
The main take home lessons from the lecture can be summarized as thus:
- It is not enough to counter violent extremism — we all need to prevent it, and this calls for ‘concerted efforts and systemic approaches at different levels: individual, government and the society etc.,’ to prevent threats driven by distorted interpretations of culture, religion, and ignorance.
- No one is born a violent extremist – they are made and fueled by circumstances around them.
Among the solutions proffered for countering extremism were respect for human rights and the rule of law, dialogue across all boundary lines, empowerment young women and men, and the provision of access to formal education.
