The Federal Government and the United States are partnering to establish a counter Improvised Explosive Device (IED) centre in Nigeria.

Making this known was the Coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) Maj.-Gen. Adamu Laka. made this known during a symposium on Countering Improvised IEDs in Abuja yesterday.

Laka said this at a symposium organised by the NCTC in Abuja. The NCTC is a unit in the Office of National Security Adviser.

He said: “What is the new thing that they(US) are going to do now?

“Like the British Government has established a counter IED centre in the Northeast, particularly in Maiduguri, we are working closely with the US Government on that also.

“They(Britain and U.S) have been training our troops for the past four years; and this has greatly impacted the proficiency of our troops in identifying IEDs, preventing such incidents and also reacting after such an incident.

‘’Samples are taken from the IED site to our laboratory at the centre to find out those materials that are used so that we will be able to know where our focus will be on restricting such materials getting into the wrong hands.

The NCTC Coordinator said that some suspected manufacturers of IEDs were already being detained and would be arraigned.

He revealed that that ONSA had taken steps to regulate the use of materials like urea fertiliser in the Northeast, which terrorists use to manufacture explosives.

“Insurgents can get things like urea fertiliser from the markets to manufacture IEDs and so on. But we won’t relent on our part. We will keep educating the populace.

“And on punishments for those who are manufacturing these IEDs, we have identified a few and they are presently awaiting to go through the judicial process.

‘’We won’t just punish them on our own. Nigeria is a signatory to international human rights laws and best practices, and so on. So we will follow the rule of law. They are innocent until proven guilty. So we have to go through the judicial process.

“We are developing a biometric database at the Office of the National Security Adviser. We are working closely with all the security and intelligence agencies. This biometric database is going to be used to identify those who are experts in manufacturing IEDs.

‘’We are working closely with the US and British governments on that and other security and intelligence agencies,’’ he said.