Social media, our tool for combating violent extremism in Northeast — Zara

Zara Mohammed Kareto is a 28 year old advocate and humanitarian worker. Deploying mainly social media for advocacy, the Mass Communication graduate, Zara, in this interview said she is part of 45 young Nigerians making case for peace and gender equality i

What is your advocacy about? The advocacy falls under the North East Regional Initiative Fellowship (NEIEF), funded by USAID. The NERI project was launched in 2014 and has focused on implanting activities that have positive impacts on citizens’ conditions and minimizes the space that allows extremists to exist, operate and thrive in their current environment. It is addressing the challenges of Violent Extremism in the region with 45 youth drawn from Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, and other parts of Nigeria.

With the programme, we do capacity building on prevention and countering violent extremism, understanding gender and social inclusion in public policy among others.

It is a social media-based advocacy which revolves around the hashtag #NotAnotherNigerian. It is a hashtag that unites us to say “NEVER AGAIN” should we, as a people go through past unpleasant experiences.

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What is life like infested region?

I applied to be a part of the campaign following encouragement from my friends and brother considering my background as a gender advocate, a Mass Communication graduate and with my first-hand experience of the Boko Haram crisis.

Coming from Borno State, I have seen and studied how a small religious sect metamorphosed into a deadly terror group that has caused so much havoc and is still causing havoc.

With the NERI/USAID project, 44 youth and I developed a strategy in 2016 for raising awareness and sensitization among people using the social media to stem the tide of spreading hatred. We were inducted as a Peace Builder and Gender Advocate focusing on ‘promoting support for gender and social inclusion in North East Nigeria.

Countering violent extremism quite daring. How do you face this?

It is daring but, we must combat the violent extremism affecting our region and this has kept me on my toes. I had to ask myself, how did we get here?

What were the driving forces? How can we enlighten our people on the dangers of violent extremism?

Which are the projects advocacy group has done?

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On advocacy, I was at the recent social media week (2018SMW) in Lagos as a panellist on the roles of women in countering violent extremism, I was a panellist at the Lake Governors Forum on Peace Building held at Borno State Government House to discuss the roles of youth in peace building and reintegration, I was also a panellist at the PEACE NEXUS in Abuja and a panellist of the #NotAnotherNigerian Hackathon held at Portharcourt Rivers state.

What challenges and your colleagues campaign?

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Some individuals are not comfortable with the idea of sharing the issues with the world and sometimes send messages to me saying “this is our problems, we don’t need other people to know, we should contain it”. We want to tell our stories ourselves to aid proper understanding. I have come across friends on social media who had extremist views and making them understand the consequences of their actions is sometimes very difficult. My Facebook account was once hacked and my post visibility was disabled for two months.

Have you recorded any success?

A lot of youth are now using the #NotAnotherNigerian on social media to spread the campaign. It has also led to the opening of a social media page, Kobahakaba by youth from Rivers State to support and empathize with the people of the Northeast. As part of the campaign, the TV series has produced a movie titled, ‘In love and ashes’. We have a page, The Power of You on Facebook.