By Pet Nathan
The Federal Government and key stakeholders in Nigeria’s peacebuilding sector have commenced the development of a new National Peace Policy to strengthen conflict prevention, coordination and resilience across the country.
The initiative was launched at a three-day technical workshop organised by the Office for Strategic Preparedness and Resilience (OSPRE) and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), in collaboration with Triple Peace Africa.
The workshop, themed “Building an Inclusive National Infrastructure for Peace and Resilience,” brought together representatives of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, legislators, state peace commissions, subnational institutions, civil society organisations and peacebuilding practitioners from across the country.
This was contained in a press statement issued by Hafsah Matazu, Programme Manager OSPRE on Thursday.
Speaking at the event, the Director-General of OSPRE, Chris Ngwodo, said the initiative was designed to develop a framework that would align Nigeria’s peacebuilding efforts with current realities.
Ngwodo noted that the proposed policy would also take into account developments that had emerged since the previous attempt to develop a National Peace Policy in 2012.
Also speaking, the Director-General of IPCR, Dr Joseph Ochogwu, described the proposed policy as critical to strengthening the country’s peacebuilding architecture.
He said the policy would “serve as the normative and operational spine of Nigeria’s peacebuilding architecture.”
The Special Adviser to the President on Homeland Security, Major General Adeyinka Famadewa (retd.), said the framework would promote a proactive approach to conflict management by involving relevant stakeholders before crises escalated.
According to him, the policy would provide “a systematic approach to conflict prevention, involving all stakeholders and moving us from reaction after the fact toward anticipation and prevention before the fact.”
The Chief Executive Officer of Triple Peace Africa, Dr Paul Nyulaku, said the emerging framework represented a new consensus among stakeholders on the need to build sustainable peace in Nigeria.
Similarly, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Peacebuilding and Social Cohesion, Sadiq Abbas Tafida, pledged the commitment of the House to supporting the policy and ensuring that adequate resources were provided for its implementation.
Participants at the workshop agreed that Nigeria needed a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to peacebuilding, linking federal institutions with state and local governments, state peace commissions, civil society organisations and community-level actors.
They also called for the adoption of a new framework that would reflect the country’s current security, social and developmental realities.
In his remarks at the close of the workshop, the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency, Lanre Issa-Onilu, urged stakeholders to ensure that the proposed policy was anchored on national values.
Issa-Onilu said the policy should also serve as an instrument for civic mobilisation and the promotion of social cohesion.
Participating institutions subsequently signed a communiqué committing themselves to stronger strategic collaboration, improved institutional coordination and greater alignment of peacebuilding activities.
The outcomes of the workshop are expected to inform further consultations across the country towards the development of an inclusive National Peace Policy and a stronger national infrastructure for peace and resilience.