The Network of Peace Journalists Kaduna (NPJK), has advocated the allocation of 30 per cent of annual budgets to peace building in the 2024 budgets of all the states of Nigeria.
The Chairman of the Network, Ibrahima Yakubu, made this known in a statement Wednesday in Kaduna.
He said in a significant development, the media network was urging both state and Federal Government’s to allocate 30 per cent of their budgets to peace building initiatives.
Yakubu emphasized the crucial need to allocate substantial portions of the budgets to peace education in primary, secondary and tertiary institutes.
He also called for the empowerment of women and youth groups in rural communities with vocational skills and training to alleviate the hardships of poverty and illiteracy.
According to him, the primary goals of peace building programs include preventing disputes from escalating, detecting concerns before they become conflicts, and formulating long-term plans to maintain a defined peaceful environment.
Yakubu said the call, which was on behalf of 100 media organizations under the network, expressed concern about the 2024 budgets presented across the 36 states of Nigeria, noting a lack of significant allocation and percentage dedicated to peace building education.
He said the aim was to mitigate conflicts and crises through early warning and early response mechanisms, preventing crises in communities that have to pass through peace building programs and education to the citizens.
Yakubu stressed the urgency of a substantial budget allocation to peace building due to the rising cases of conflict, including gender-based violence, rape, ethno-religious tensions.
Other areas of concern are political unrest, farmer and herder battles, phone snatchings, and youth gangsterism, which are jeopardizing peace stability across the states.
Yakubu highlighted the necessity for a separate budget for peace building, aimed at training and retraining citizens on peace and unity in every state in the country.
Yakubu further appealed to President Bola Tinubu to allocate a significant portion of the 2024 federal budget to peace building, especially in the North-East, North-West and Southern parts of the country.
He called on the Kaduna State government to revive ‘Operation Yaki’ and equip them with the latest digital gadgets to combat insecurity in the state.
Yakunba urged state and Federal Governments to address price hikes in the markets, including poverty, unemployment, corruption and illiteracy.
“There is a need to interpret the annual budgets into local languages for every citizen to be acquainted with them, so as to carry every one along,” he said.
