Education, De-radicalisation and The North-East

The educational sector has been one of the most contested and conflicted spaces in Northern Nigeria since the colonial times. Thus, most Northern youth have been consistently denied access to modern education.

Yet, the Madrassa education cherished in the region is hardly accepted as a basis for public sector employment. Consequently, the teeming youth have been confined to unprofitable menial jobs such as shoe-shinning, wood-hewing, water-fetching and solicitation of alms to meet their basic needs (Imobighe, 2012).

On an account of these drawbacks, a number of them have been brain-washed, recruited and radicalised by insurgent groups such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province which continue to denunciate modern education to date. Importantly, modern education is one of the chief cornerstones which can mediate sustainable development in the troubled region and obviate incessant recourse to violence.

Following these developments, this edition of Nextier SPD Weekly examines the role of educational reform and de-radicalisation in the reconstruction agenda of the North-East.

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