By Bashir Hassan Abubakar
Journalists in the Country have tasked to use their skills and mediums in raising the citizensā consciousness against terrorism, terrorism financing and violent extremism to encourage community-oriented approach to addressing terrorism.
They were also encouraged to focus on promoting positive narratives through specific highlights on resilience, tolerance, peaceful co-existence within the community in their reportages.
These calls were part of recommendations in communique issued by participants at the end of Two Days workshop on Preventing Terrorism Financing and Violent Extremism held in Yola, Adamawa State.
Organised by Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) with support from ECOWAS -GIABA ,Ā participants wereĀ implored to devise avenues and mechanisms to monitor and scrutinise informal funding systems and channels to successfully disrupt financial flows to terrorism activities.
The participants were also encouraged to increasing citizensā sensitisation on reporting channels and structure across security institutions to enhance timely information provision, protect whistle-blowers, and encourage community actions against terrorism, terrorism financing and violent extremism.
The participants at the workshop, who were drawn from Civil Society Organisations, Security Agencies, Traditional Institutions and the Media were challenged on strengthening reporting structures and systems across the response institution that includes the NSCDC, Nigerian Police, EFCC, NFIU , to efficiently gather intelligence, absorb and respond to public reports against terrorism and terroristsā financial activities.
Other recommendations captured in the communique include:
– Deepening border security across the country to mitigate unattended movement of illicit activities facilitating terrorism financing.
-Strengthening inter-agency collaboration to enhance information sharing to fortify monitoring and surveillance on the activities of terrorists and terroristsā financiers.
– Improving public investment in technological advancement to support information gathering and tracking of terroristsā activities as well as rapid response.
– Prompt regulation of preaching and financial activities across religious institutions through persistent monitoring of their teaching, donation and expenditure sources, to prevent continuous use of the institutions for financing terrorism or violent radicalisation.
– Immediate deployment of more forensic gadgets by the NFIU to more response agencies to fast-track timely forensic investigation and report on suspected activities.
– Adequate whistle-blower protection through policy transition into legislation to ensure data secrecy and encourage anonymous reporting against terrorism financing and violent extremism.
– Creation of a state-based Situation Room across the North East region, to absorb anonymous reporting, facilitate and fast-track all-inclusive response to violent extremism.
– Promoting positive narratives through specific highlights on resilience, tolerance, peaceful co-existence within the community in media reportage, to reduce tension and counter violent extremism.
– Challenging hate-speech and unguarded utterances in content creation, news coverage and reportage through thorough scrutiny and vetting to prevent over-sensationalised content and de-escalate conflict.
– Comprehensive regulation of the social media, taking into cognisance human rights provisions, to mitigate violent-triggered contents that motivate violent extremism.
– Promoting responsible journalism through training and retraining programmes for journalists on conflict-sensitivity and conflict-de-escalation.
– Targeted training and retraining programmes for journalists across Defence and Security Desks on violent extremism and terrorism financing, to enhance their capacity in investigation and reportage.
Our correspondent reports that the communique was signed Shekara Anthony of Radio Nigeria, Adamawa state, Williams Attah of Daily Independent, Gombe state and Ishola Michael Adeyemi of Nigerian Tribune, Bauchi state.