TheCable

The North-East Development Commission (NEDC) has established the Centre for the Study of Violent Extremism at the University of Maiduguri, Borno state.

The NEDC, whose board was inaugurated in 2019, oversees the rehabilitation of the north east states and the rebuilding of their economy.

The Centre for the Study of Violent Extremism was built to cater to academics, researchers and scholars interested in the insurgency and train people on how to contain extremism.

Mohammed Alkali, managing director of the NEDC, spoke about the centre on Monday, December 6, during a parley with media executives in Maiduguri.

Speaking during a visit to the recently-commissioned centre, Aliyu Shugaba, vice-chancellor, University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), said it will aid research into violent extremism.

“The purpose of the building is to serve as one of the resource places, one of those edifices that we need to be able to conduct very good research and training as far as the studies of violent extremism is concerned,” he said.

“We need to study what brings about this madness and how we will counter it. We are happy that the North-East Development Commission has come in to give us this place.

“The university, having suffered, having been in this place where insurgency has been on for more than a decade, we feel we are the ones to appropriately engage ourselves in understanding the dynamics of violent extremism, the root causes and how we will prevent future occurrences.”

The vice-chancellor added that some research has already been proposed and selected for funding by the NEDC.

The NEDC MD also said the commission has also built a burns centre at the UNIMAID teaching hospital.

He said the commission has set up an education endowment fund for building human capital in the region through scholarships, short term capacity building, and improvement of basic education.

Alkali said the NEDC has completed or is nearing the completion of at least one mega school in each of the 18 senatorial districts in the north-east geopolitical zone.

“The mega schools are being built at the total cost of N21.6 bn. The schools are being fenced and each of it will have sixteen classrooms for 1,200 students in each of the schools. We’re also building six laboratories in each of the schools and a 480 capacity students hostels,” Alkali added.