From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the establishment of a National Centre for the Coordination of Early Warning and Response Mechanism with the signing of Executive Order 12.
According to a statement by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, Laolu Akande, the order signed on June 10, 2022 establishes the National Early Warning Centre pursuant to Article 58 of the Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Article 16 of the Protocol on the Mechanism related to Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security.
Under the ECOWAS instruments, including the 1993 Revised ECOWAS Treaty, each member state is to establish a national early warning centre to address issues related to threats to human security as part of the regional body’s peace and security architecture.
The Nigerian Centre is domiciled in the Office of the Vice President, and with the support of relevant national and transnational institutions, will provide research, analysis and advisory on trends in the human security sector cutting across the environment, public health and governance.
Other areas the Centre will focus on include human rights, food security and crime among others, as well as support government’s responses to emerging situations in these domains.
The President had earlier approved the appointment of Chris Ngwodo as the Director General of the National Centre. Before his last appointment as Senior Special Assistant to the President on Policy Research in the Office of the Vice President, Ngwodo had served as Technical Assistant to the President on Justice, Conflict and Security in the Office of the Vice President.
Ngwodo, a lawyer, has worked on conflict, human security, policy and development issues for over a decade. He was a member of the Presidential Committee on the North-East Initiative and has served in various capacities on numerous human security-related assignments.
