The University of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria has commissioned a resource centre for countering violence extremism within and around the Lake Chad region.
Named CVE Resource Centre, the facility is expected to carry out research and develop counter-narratives against extremist ideologies.
It is donated by an international aid agency, the North-East Region Initiative. Located within the complex of the university’s already existing Centre for Disaster Risk Management and Development Studies, the CVE Resource centre, the first of its kind in the country, is to be operated by staffers of the university, while NERI takes charge of its funding.
The University of Maiduguri has suffered several attacks by the insurgents some of which have claimed staffers.
Speaking during the commissioning of the centre, Program Manager of NERI, Suleiman Dauda, said the centre was initiated in accordance with the desire of NERI to have a very stable recovery in the post insurgency period built on a foundation of rigorous scholarship and knowledge-based research and ideas.
This, he said, informed NERI’s choice of the University of Maiduguri for the purpose of establishing the countering violence extremism center which will work collaboratively with other universities across the Lake chad basin to ensure that a common front is forged in countering violent extremism.