From: Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri
The Nigerian Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have canvassed for shift of attention from humanitarian support to victims of insurgency to peace-building in the post insurgency programme for the northeast states.
IPCR Director-General, Prof. Osita Osita at a media parley jointly organized with the UNHCR Head of Sub Office Maiduguri, Borno State, Cesar Tshilombo, on Thursday, said it was time talk more and concentration building peace among the people wrecked by bloodletting from Boko Haram insurgents. They said crises were never resolved through continuous provision of relief materials, urging the federal and state governments, other UN agencies and local and international humanitarian groups to focus more on peace building.
“It is the first step to healing the wound inflicted by the senseless war. We must do some assessment to understand the pains of the people and begin to heal their wound by building peace through confidence,” Prof. Osita stated.
He said the institute developed a peace building project in conjunction with the UNHCR and identified some communities after carrying out situation analysis of intervention from humanitarian agencies. “We do situation analysis of what the humanitarian agencies are doing and discovered some gaps in the area of intervention. What is needed mostly now is peace building,” the DG said.
He noted that Nigeria did not have plan for prevention of violent crisis in the past but only react after the occurrence of violence. He said the institute was created to address such challenge by developing strategies to prevent violence rather than reactive. He explained that conflict was part of life but violent conflict should be prevented. He disclosed that the institute was opening a centre in the state to facilitate the engagement with people affected by Boko Haram insurgency in the peace rebuilding process.
Head of UNHCR Sub Office, Maiduguri, Ceasar Tshilombo, described Boko Haram violence as one of the bloodiest crises in the world. He said the crisis has caused great consequences not only for Nigeria but also African nations around the Lake Chad region with more than 15 million people affected and over 400,000 structure destroyed. He said the crisis was not a simple one when considering its impact on economy, family structure and development of the country. “Today the northeast is prone to famine due to the inability of people to farm for years,” he added.
He said the biggest destruction was the social strata which he described as increasing non conventional family structure. “This means a lot of families are now headed by women who have been widowed, children who have been orphaned and extended family members who may not understand the challenges faced by the survivors of the crisis,” he explained.
He advocated for the use of the African mechanism for solving crisis through the traditional institution and community leaders. He said the peace building project was about how the community can be influenced to develop “positive coping mechanism to build resilience, have confidence about rebuilding themselves without necessarily relying on support from anywhere.”