A Non-Governmental Organization, under the aegis of Immaculate Initiative for Peace (IIP), has called on the Federal, state and local governments across the country to set up Peace Committees in their area of jurisdictions to address issues of people’s anger, grievances and observations before they degenerate into conflict.
The group made the call at a press conference in commemoration of the International Day of Peace, saying that in line with this year’s theme: “Cultivate the Culture of Peace,” there was no better time than now to make such a move giving the existence of conflicts in the streets, communities, villages, towns, states and the country at large.
According to IIP, all these have a telling effect on the nation as a people because of the killings, maiming, displacements and properties damaged as a result of conflict.
Addressing newsmen at the event, Director General of the group, Bankole Dada, noted that the International Day of Peace had always been a time to lay down weapons and observe ceasefires, saying that it now must also be a time for people to see each other’s humanity.
Dada, while asserting that people’s survival as a global community depends on peaceful coexistence, said the ideas of peace and the culture of peace, needed to be cultivated in the minds of children and communities through formal and informal education, across countries and generations.
He said the government at all levels should ensure that establishment of these Peace bodies being demanded from them should comprise the representatives of security agencies, the traditional and religious leaders, civil society and Non-governmental organizations, youth, women groups and persons with disability, further urging that the bodies should be backed by law in order to legalize their existence.
Besides, Dada equally demanded that the government at all levels should establish an institute of peace to promote research, advocacy and study of peace, positing that the culture of peace in any society is not a walk in the park, but “an initiative that requires seriousness and commitment from all the stakeholders in order to make progress and develop to actualize the human potential for the collective good.”
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“We demand that the Federal, States and Local Governments Council Areas to set up Peace Committees at the various tiers of government as an agency to address issues of people’s anger, grievances and observations before they degenerate into conflict.
“We urge that this Peace bodies should comprise of the representatives of our security agencies, our respected traditional and religious leaders, civil society and Non-governmental organizations, youth and women groups and persons with disability.
“We equally call for the existence of this Peace committees to be backed by law in order to legalize their existence.
“We call on the Nigerian authorities to establish an institute of peace to promote research, advocacy and study of peace,” Dada said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, cultivating the culture of peace in any society is not a walk in the park, it’s an initiative that requires seriousness and commitment from all the stakeholders in order to make progress and develop to actualize the human potential for the collective good,” he added.
Speaking further, the IIP Director General said the body led by him, and which had been in existence for close to two decades with over 10000 members across all council areas of Lagos State, had championed conflict resolution in various areas like marital issues, soliciting health assistance for individuals in dire need through the Ministry of Health as well as intervention in the construction of a befitting office of Citizen’s Mediation Center at Igando-Ikotun LCDA.
He said his organization recently was in the forefront of brokering peace, concerning the leadership tussle in the Lagos State Butcher’s Association, among others.
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