Japanese government has sponsored no fewer than 200 religious leaderss in the North East of Nigeria to neutralize Boko Haram terrorist ideology.
The programme is being handled by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in partnership with United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
In Yobe state, the Center brought together sixty participants who were sensitized on how to cancel out the Boko Haram ideologies thereby paving ways for peaceful coexistence among people in respective of religious differences.
A collection of religious clerics was drawn from different faith, beliefs and ideologies from across the state.
As religious clerics with huge followers, the workshop is aimed at training participants on how to counter violent extremism with the content of their various homilies.
Participants will undergo a two-day workshop on peaceful relations with different religion, acceptance of non-Islamic political authorities, among other several ways of harmonious coexistence.
The Programme officer of the Centre for Democracy and Development, Mr David Omoigiade, said that the centre would focus on neutralizing the ideology of the terrorist group that may have been propagated in the northeast that has seen over six years of insurgency.
In Yobe State, the Centre carried out series of activities which include, screening and assessment, sensitization as well as training which were carried out in Dapchi, Buniyadi and Damaturu Local Government Areas.
Some of the participants at the session, Mohammed Bashir and Mohammed Atahiru, expressed confidence that the programme would enshrine a positive impact in the counter-insurgency process.
Apart from achieving harmonious coexistence among the people of the zone and the country as a whole, the workshop will further curtail violence extremism among the diverse people of the North East geopolitical zone of Nigeria.
The terrorist group, Boko Haram, has attacked many communities in northeast Nigeria in its over six years push for the establishment of an Islamic State and an end to Western education in the region.
However, heightened counter-terrorism operations of the Nigerian Armed forces and forces of countries in the Lake Chad Basin that begin early last year have decimated the terrorists.
The current situation of things requires that the ideology of the terrorists, which may have been transferred to residents of some communities they had taken hold of, should be neutralized by the clerics who have direct relationship with the residents. [myad]
