By Fadare Olushola Peter – Intelligence and Security Constituency.

One of the major reasons for people becoming terrorists is unemployment, social injustice, social inequality and lack of education. Those innocent minds that are facing such problems are brainwashed and forced to indulge in these kinds of threatening activities.

People who are denied their fundamental rights and are discriminated against because of their caste, religion or sex develop a grudge against the society and therefore commit such crimes in order to take revenge. Such people simply wish to take revenge for all that they have suffered. This is the reason they don’t even care for their lives and become suicide bombers.

Recurring terrorists acts in Nigeria have the likelihood of stretching the national security apparatus to its limits, thus exposing its weakness. To fight terrorism in the nation requires a strong, proactive measures rather than reactive approach because when they occur, the consequences are often devastating.

Terrorism is like a tree you keep cutting its branches it will continue to grow, but if you want to eradicate it completely, you have to get to its roots.

If proper education is given to backward people, then no one can make a fool of them and they will be able to take decisions on issues affecting their lives. In most cases, many terrorists surrender when they see that their children get good education and their families are supported by government.

Corrupt security officers are a major setback: security and integrity should be given serious consideration when recruiting security officers. Those who will not meet that threshold should not be allowed into the services. The vetting of an officer is very important to see a number of corrupt officers removed from the system.

There should be a programme to synchronise the activities of the military, the police and other intelligence agencies in order to develop a common standard and operation procedure for forces in the country.

Poverty-in-the-land-Pix-Paul-Kuyoro_0803 — Poverty-in-the-land

We need to counter religious propaganda and indoctrination. Terrorism occurs when ideological motivation meets with operational capability. The way in which a terrorist group shapes its radical world view and disseminates it to audiences worldwide plays an important role in the public interface between the group and its target audience.

Social media can be used to sniff out signs of terrorism by collecting, collating and analysing information or messages in order to interpret certain scenarios. For instance, programmes such as open source indicators system for intelligence extracts and analyses data from social media with the goal of monitoring and forecasting when national security-related events such as political crises, protest emergencies and the like are likely to occur.

To counter these threats, the government needs to establish extensive intelligence gathering and security system such as maintaining extensive files on suspected terrorists and terrorist groups. The use of agents to infiltrate the groups as a way of gathering information or spreading disinformation as well as the use of controversial tactics including assassination of leaders and preemptive strikes on terrorist groups could be helpful.

Building a counter terrorism plan involves all segments of a society or many government agencies. In dealing with terrorist, the lead responsibility is usually at the national level.