Nigerian Army engages religious leaders on insurgency fight

The Nigerian Army said it will reinforce the role of religious leaders in the ongoing campaign against insurgency in the North East.

In a statement on Wednesday in Abuja, the Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Sagir Musa, said the Chaplain and Islamic Directorates of the Nigerian Army commenced an effort to reinforce the campaign in 2019 when it organised the first edition of Spiritual Warfare seminar to engage religious/spiritual leaders from across the country.

He said the second edition of the seminar has been slated to hold on Thursday in Abuja.

According to him, the programme is expected to sensitise and mobilise religious/spiritual leaders to enlighten and educate their followers on the true and correct tenets of Islamic and Christian religions.

He said the move is to ensure that youth are not easily brainwashed by the devilish and wicked teachings of Boko haram’s ideology.

“The seminar is also intended to stimulate renewed vigour to finding ways of curtailing and tackling Boko haram’s extremism and recruitment drive using counter-narratives.

“This is due to the fact that terrorism is about the battle of the inner consciousness and the struggle for winning the hearts and minds of the people,” he said.

The war against Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast part of the country has been ongoing since 2009 with attendant loss of lives and property worth several millions of Naira.

The Nigerian army has also lost a good number of its men and officers to the insurgency whose epicentre is Borno State where some 43 rice farmers were recently murdered by the insurgents.