by Achadu Gabriel, Kaduna
An NGO, ‘International Alert Nigeria,’ says it has established community dialogue platforms in four LGAs of Kaduna and Zamfara States. The LGAs include Chikun and Jama’a, in Kaduna State, and Tsafe and Birnin Magaji in Zamfara State, identified as severe crises-ridden states in Northwest Nigeria.
The Country Director, International Alert Nigeria and Convener of State-Level Conflict, Justice and Stability Planning workshop, Dr. Paul Nyulaku, disclosed this in an interview during workshop in Kaduna on Monday.
Dr. Nyulaku said the platforms were established to deal with the drivers of conflict and instabilities in those locations, describing the workshop as Multi-stakeholders, focusing on planned priority around conflict and access to justice and accountability.
The Director said they’ve been operating in Kaduna and Zamfara States for the past one year, particularly in Chikun and Jama’a in Kaduna, and Tsafe and Birnin Magaji in Zamfara State.
He said “In all these locations, we have established community dialogue platforms that have actually been making efforts to deal with the drivers of conflict and instabilities in those locations.
“We are having this conversion at this time, which is about looking at priority at that level. We are doing it because we want an alignment of those priorities at the community level with LG priorities as well as state-level priorities,” he added.
He noted that, “This is important because of the uptake of the issues that we have found out at the community levels having worked there in the last one year.
“So, we are trying to use this as an opportunity to establish that alignment between communities, LGs and State Governments to identify what these institutions maybe for picking up and addressing some of the issues that communities are grabbling with.
“To do an overall review basically of what successes we’ve achieved, and what other responses at that LG level and state govt levels are important to ensure we established stability in these locations.
“This is fundamentally going to be a modeling – modeling in approach in a way that we are using. This model can then be adopted, duplicated across the states and in other States, because this model is specific to what role communities can play in addressing their issues,” he noted.
He also stated that, “And we call that plan that communities are developing as ‘community justice and stability plans.’ It simply means that, we encapsulate all of the priorities around the thematic areas in form of a plan.
“And by plan, it means who does what, when, and how in dealing with all these issues at the community level. And we hope that the networking opportunity that this workshop will provide will help communities to deal with these issues in a more concerted manner with the LG and State Governments,” he explained.
On choice of Kaduna and Zamfara States, Dr. Nyulaku said they are the most affected by conflict in Northwest, in terms of severity of conflict that can help then make the best impacts.
He also speaks on their challenges, adding, “They are multi-sectoral, and that’s why we adopt multi-dimensional approach in dealing with the issues. Challenges are around security.
“In certain context, the right environments are not available for any form of peaceful dialogue to happen. And so, that environment needs to be stabilized for the security response.
“And on the part of that, what other peace, dialogue, non-security, non-cohesive options are available to ensure that we reach the desired level of stability?
“Above all, there are things that the communities cannot do for themselves. For example, in terms of justice, where justice has been denied, people’s rights have been violated at the community level. There are certain state laws and frameworks that enable communities to deal with these issues and seek redress.
“And so, we need uptake of this issues so that communities can access justice, whether it’s formal or informal or local justice or traditional justice. All forms of justices that will enable us achieve stability at community level is actually the reasons why we are having all of these conversions.
“There are a couple of challenges. Example, Gender-based Violence (GBV), is the heart of the crises that we faced in all these locations.
“Women and children are worse hit. And again, we also need to prioritize the role of women in addressing some of the drivers of the conflict, especially the role of women in peace building, so that we address some of these challenges, where different genders, whether they are youth or women or men, withdraw, and not play an active role in dealing with this issue at that level.
“So, we want everybody to be on board, including the media, to play a role in terms of up-scaling some of the challenges that communities face and making sure that our reportage is sensitive and does not do harm in anyway, having been with us through all our engagements.
“So, all key stakeholders, is in a multi-dimensional approach, to ensure everybody has a role to play. And at difference point in the project, we make sure that all key stakeholders come to the table.
“As we are doing in this workshop with LG and State Governments, we have also had several engagements with national stability dialogue, several workshops at difference levels, difference points of the program, and will continue to do that, recognizing that, dealing with drivers of the conflict and achieving instability, is multi-stakeholders’ responsibility,” he stated.
Also speaking, Executive Director Global Peace Development, Ebruke Esike, observed that the workshop was part of the design of the project inclusive of peace commission works in Kaduna State. “What we expected from the community is to ensure stability of security for every man and woman in Kaduna State, irrespective of where you come from,” he said.
He expressed satisfaction with the progress so far with men and women having access to justice, saying, “Some of you working with us know there is progress in those communities, and you would know women and girls are having access. Last week, there were reported cases that were not reported before, and some of these people have been prosecuted.
“One major part is that, when the justice system is working, people in the community works, traditional system works; there will be very strong stable society.”
Similarly, the Executive Director Voluntary Aid Initiatives, a local implementing partner for Int’l Alert in Zamfara State, Musa Umar, stated that, “The beauty of it is that, we have almost all our stakeholders in this project that are present in the workshop in Kaduna, both from the government and private side, and should be able to take home and follow-up to ensure all that have been discussed.
“And where it required policy review or not in the State Assembly for bill, we go for it. Zamfara is facing a lot of issues surrounding insecurity, especially bandits: Human development capital issue and GBV issues, respectively.
“We need GBV finance support trust funds to support survivals to be able to access justice. That’s 1. Secondly, Local Justice System can be adopted by the local justice system. The formal justices system has a lot of bottlenecks and delays,” he added.
Participants at the one-day workshop include government officials and its agencies, also cut across all justice systems, traditional and formal, and executives of agencies.