The Federal Government has said it will deploy technology in its fight against insurgency in the Northeast.
The government, through the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), said it would collaborate with the Yobe State University, Damaturu, to actualise the plan.
It said this would also create jobs for the youth, men and women in the areas to make it impossible for them to be recruited into criminal groups.
NASENI’s Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Prof Mohammed Haruna, who broke the news, said the agency could intervene in several areas, such as water projects or irrigation, by using small hydro-Kinetic turbine or solar energy produced by the agency to generate electricity.
He added that schools that were destroyed by Boko Haram insurgents would be refurbished by providing primary and secondary laboratory equipment to be powered by solar.
A statement by its Deputy Director Information, Olusegun Ayeoyenikan, said the EVC spoke at the weekend in Abuja when the university’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Yakubu Muhktar and his team visited the agency’s headquarters.
He said: “NASENI and the Yobe State University, Damaturu, have agreed, in the spirit of corporate social responsibility (CSR), to deploy technology and engineering tools in the Northeast to create jobs for youths, men and women in the areas so as to make their recruitment into insurgency impossible.
“The absence of viable economic alternatives for youths and men in those areas has made them vulnerable to crime.”
The statement noted that if the mineral resources available in the Northeast, especially in Yobe State, were harnessed with the use of technology available at NASENI, the youths would be gainfully employed.
It said this would turn them away from insurgency activities, which advertently exposed them to danger, to law-abiding citizens.
“Yobe State is blessed with mineral resources and if the state could deploy some of the technologies in NASENI, the youths will be trained on how to use locally developed technologies to harness the resources in the state, thereby creating opportunities for gainful employment for themselves…”
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