International Alert, a peace-building NGO, said that providing security could serve as a counter-measure but not the only approach to ensuring peace in Nigeria.
Its Country Director, Dr Paul Nyulaku expressed this thought in a sideline interview during the 3rd induction of trained members to the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) on Tuesday in Abuja.
“There is a need to have a more comprehensive response to conflict and violence, rather than providing security alone because providing security is not the only solution to peace-building in Nigeria.
“We need to look at humanitarian and development responses and make sure that concrete efforts are made to bring them together to consolidate the peace rather than the sort of negativity you achieve by forcing people not to fight.
“Although providing security is important especially when violence is threatening or occurring, it needs to be borne in mind that a security provision-driven approach would represent only one component of a much larger, integrated approach to conflict management and resolution,” he said.
Nyulaku observed that IPCR has a crucial role to play in the development and implementation of a comprehensive and integrated approach to the prevention and sustenance of peace.
Earlier in his remarks, the Director-General of IPCR, Dr Joseph Ochogwu, said Nigeria “needs to build peace and not just rely on solving conflicts.”
The director-general who was represented by Emmanuel Mamman, the Director of Internal Conflict Prevention and Resolution Department, IPCR, urged peace-builders to take the proper steps that would help prevent the escalation of conflicts.
“Nigeria has been confronted with a heightened spate of crime, insecurity, and in particular leadership crisis and this has caused a decline in its economic growth and development.
“IPCR will continue to make conscious efforts by raising peace ambassadors to ensure that whatever threatens peace will be addressed to make sure that the society is at peace,” Ochogwu said.
