Addressing Conflicts in Niger Delta

Addressing Conflicts in Niger Delta

Ugo Aliogo writes on how P4P, a network self-identifying peace agents founded by PIND, is addressing communal conflicts in Niger-Delta

When the United Nations (UN) carefully crafted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the sixteenth item, which focuses on the “promotion of peace, justice and strong institutions,” it knew that no country could genuinely progress in an atmosphere rife with conflicts and insecurity.

In fact, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in a report revealed that 82.4 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced at the end of 2020 as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.
Coupled with the fact that countries across the world are battling the ravaging and deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, while urging countries to focus on the “true fight” – COVID-19, appealed to warring parties across the world to lay down their weapons in support of the bigger battle against the pandemic, especially the revival of economies which has been badly affected by it.

Nigeria being the most populous African nation with at least 200 million people, has been plagued repeatedly by pockets of unrest, insecurity, insurgency, kidnapping, gang rivalries, inter-communal conflicts which disturbs and distorts social, economic and political developments.

More disturbing are the internal conflicts and rivalries between peoples and communities, which can potentially spread like wildfire; consuming an entire community, and bringing developmental activities to a halt.
Similarly, the realities in the Niger Delta region have been shaped by several years of unhealthy tension between its people, private organisations (especially oil explorers), and the government. Added to this is the recurring internal clashes and conflicts like inter-communal violence, land/boundary disputes, gang rivalries and violence, and political squabbles in the region.

Jennifer Eze from Asa community aptly captured how inter-communal violence forever changed the trajectory of her life and family.
Her countenance reeked with unspoken tales of pain. She frequently blinked her eyes to prevent a tear from falling down her cheeks.
She recounted how cult groups in her community gruesomely murdered her husband -father of her three children, and breadwinner of the family.

Her husband was caught in the “crossfire” between warring groups, who wasted no opportunity to render lifeless anything that crossed their path. The group of misguided youths brought sorrow, tears and blood to the community.
“With the presence of those cultists, everybody else ran away. Those cult boys fight each other. Then they kill everything in their path. Sometimes they cut off heads and bury the people. They burn houses and scatter everything.

“On getting to my house, there was a large crowd. When I asked what had happened, they said my husband was shot. I was in shock and started crying. As all these were going on, I saw some groups coming in my direction. My mother-in-law quickly told me to take my children and leave,” Eze said.

According to the Secretary of the Central Working Committee of the Partners for Peace (P4P) in the Niger Delta, Pastor Edewor Egedegbe, “Cult activities were the principal cause of conflicts. The Asa Community was a go-no area to many before our intervention.

“Partner for Peace is a network of all personalities drawn from the academia, religious angle, community leadership angle, student angle, and from all spheres of life. They have been trained that no matter what happens, they are ones that can settle their differences, instead of waiting for external forces to come and settle it for them.
“In communities with conflicts, we agreed that there should be a peace accord to be signed by both parties, so that we put an end to incessant internal crises.”

Speaking about the crisis in the Asa Community, Executive Director of Community Peace Development Initiative, Uzezi Agbor added: “We have the interest of building community leadership and their capacities. It took the community leadership to rise up to contain the situation. P4P was involved because that is the umbrella with which we went. A Peace Actor promotes peace to enable economic activity to thrive in a given environment.”

He explained that one approach that works is inviting members of the community – men, women, youths, and elderly to a round table, and enlightening them on the overarching importance of maintaining peace.
Another victim of a communal crisis in the Elu community of Delta State, Duke Akpoyibo, narrated how some miscreants unjustly killed his brother in the line of duty. His late brother, Kent Akpoyibo, was a security personnel.

In response, the aggrieved group burned three houses. This vicious chain of revenge would have become worse had the Partnership for Peace (P4P) not intervened and mediated between aggrieved parties.
Holding his phone and showing the picture of his late brother, Duke said: “This was my late brother Kent that I am telling you about.

“My brother was a security personnel in the community. He was carrying out the mandate of maintaining law and order in the community when he was attacked. They followed him up to his personal house and attacked him there.
“When I saw him at the hospital and the place where he was stabbed – rushing and pumping blood, that made me very annoyed. I was furious. All I wanted was revenge.

“It would have become a community war, had the P4P not intervened and encouraged people in the community to embrace peace.
“They made us understand that it is only when there is peace in the community that the government and other well-meaning individuals and organisations can contribute meaningfully to our growth and development.”

Conflict Resolution

The overall prosperity of any country is not measured solely by the wealth and resources it has stored in its reserves (be it local or foreign) or underneath the ground, but whether the people experience peace and tranquility that gives them hope of a better tomorrow, and confidence to strive to make a decent living, hence, contributing to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The Niger Delta region is not just a demographic delineation of a people, but has become the lifeblood of Nigeria.
If the oil-rich region made up of nine states (Cross River, Edo, Delta, Abia, Imo, Bayelsa, River, Akwa-Ibom and Ondo) were to experience extreme unrest and major disruptions, the economic future of the country will be threatened; funds to drive recurring and capital expenditures would simply dry up, while the wheels of governance would grind to a complete halt.
Therefore, the survival, peace and progress of the Niger Delta region should be a collective priority for every stakeholder in the Nigeria project.

To reduce the conflict situations in the Niger Delta, the Partners for Peace (P4P), which is a network a self-identifying peace agents – founded by the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND), a non-profit organisation promoting peace and equitable economic development in the Niger Delta, came to the rescue.

Its mission is simple: Build social capital around peacebuilding by amplifying the voices of positive actors, building a network of self-identified agents of peace, and leveraging that network for conflict mitigation/peacebuilding through facilitation, small grants, and capacity building.

The network draws thousands of stakeholders from the civil society, community-based organisations, non-governmental organisations, private companies, donor organisations, and the general public committed to promoting peaceable livelihoods in the Niger Delta.
In 2013, PIND launched the P4P Network with just about 120 volunteers across the region who were trained and empowered with data and skills to address cult clashes, lawlessness, political violence, militancy and communal violence.

The P4P now constitutes over 10,000 self-identified agents of peace, and has a chapter in all nine States of the Niger Delta and sub-chapters in 119 local government areas (LGAs) out of 185 LGAs in the Niger Delta region as at 2020. P4P has mitigated over 800 emerging conflicts in local communities across the region.

Whenever conflict situations arise, the P4P immediately swings into action because the work of peacebuilding is never done; it is a continuous effort of problem solving overtime, as a result of tireless work of thousands of volunteers to make sure that peace can finally take hold.

In Delta state for example, land conflicts between the Okpolo-Enwhe and Igbide communities required urgent attention.
The Vice President (retired) of Isoko Development Union of the Okpolo-Enwhe community, Dr. Isaac Omeke explained that the conflict and boundary disputes between the Okpolo-Enwhe and Igbide communities dates back to 1967.

A resident of Okpolo-Enwhe community, Eunice Monday said:“Before the crisis we were very happy in Enwhe. You go to bed peacefully and wake up peacefully. We leave our houses and return without any problem. It is not as if we are the ones looking for trouble. They have been the ones terrorising our community. May this war end.”

According to the President General of the Igbide community, Dr. Patrick Harrison Oboghor, “Why war? Why waste your time, money and energy to fight war? When Partners for Peace came, they engaged the two commun
ities and we had dialogues. And so many of the things they told us were put into action. Because of this there was relative peace.
“We all agreed that we will go to the bush and put a boundary to ensure that tomorrow there is no more conflict.

“Truth is; we can start with 10 people. The 10 persons can go into the community and talk to 10 more persons. 20 will go down and talk to 20 more. This way, the whole thing will cascade down to the smallest person in the community.”
Also, over 100 miles to the East of Elu of Imo state where Kent was unjustly killed, the situation would have degenerated into uncontrolled spates of revenge, save for the fact that P4P was already on ground to intervene.

When these kinds of conflicts come up, P4P recognises them through real time analysis of geo-spatial information collected through an SMS-based early warning and early response (EWER) system at PIND’s Integrated Peace and Development Unit in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Then, the team members move quickly to coordinate the response of Peace Agents on ground. Most importantly, lessons are shared across the region so that resilience can take root.
The above conflict mitigation stories are just a few of many, showing how PIND Foundation leverages systematic data in human-driven efforts to promote and enable an environment for peace and livelihoods.

Commenting on the role the P4P played in dousing the crisis in the Elu community, His Royal Majesty, Utoke Murphy Urugbai, GP Ugbara the First, Ovie of Elu Community, said: “Because the crisis was getting out-of-hand, we put a law that at a certain time at night, parties should be closed. The late Kent went on a legal mission before the unfortunate incident. It is very difficult to get this thing right, especially when a dead body is on the ground. However, we thank God for the organisation P4P.”

How P4P Peace Map Works

Use of local peacebuilding structures (such as the P4P), and early warning/early response (EWER) promotes resilient stability instead of the short-term, little long-term impact produced by using the traditional military action, legislature and inquiry panels for conflict mitigation.

According to David Udofia, PIND’s Peacebuilding Program Manager, “The Peace Map brings together all available sources on peace and conflict to one platform; it enables users to understand the conflict landscape and peace and security architecture in Nigeria – in our case, the Niger Delta’’. Access to the Peace Map can be found at P4P-nigerdelta.org.

The P4P Peace Map is a highly interactive tool that enables one to test hypotheses and links between indicators. The Interactive Map within the Peace Map has boxes that show the specific incidents – their sources, time it was reported, Local Government Area (LGA), state, etc. It has 24,000 data points coded since 2009.

It has indicators, which define a set of parameters for conflict risk factors, such as: human rights (child abuse, sexual violence etc.), group grievance (ethnic and religious tension, tension and violence between political groups), etc. Specific indicators can therefore be selected.

It can also be selected on the basis of the six geo-political zones in the country, by states, and if necessary selected by LGA. Specific incidents affecting women and girls can be selected. Specific catchwords or phrases can also be selected to deepen the search.

The Peace Map has a hit map that shows the hot spot of violence over the period selected. It also shows how the hot spots have moved over time.
There are also chats showing general incidents and fatality over the period selected. Users can get data using selected indicators and sub-indicators. States, LGAs can also be compared over a period of time. Multiple stakeholder utilise these data for planning interventions and decision-making.

Selfless Volunteers

It is true that nowhere and nobody is safe until everywhere and everybody is safe. Nigeria cannot be said to be peaceful until peace is seen to trickle down to every nook and cranny of the country.
Like anything worth achieving, effort is vitally important. Therefore, the drive to restore and maintain peace in the country, especially in the Niger Delta, must be a collective vision and work.

With a volunteer army of over 10,000 Peace Agents drawn from all walks of life, and spread across the local government areas in the Niger Delta, the vision to ensure and sustain peaceful coexistence in the region is feasible, especially if scaled up to more communities.

Amamogiran Francis, a peace actor in Dodo River Regional Development Committee in Bayelsa State. After participating in PIND’s training on EWER (early warning and early response), Amamogiran set up an early response subgroup in the five (5) communities that his organisation works with Amatu 1, Amatu 2, Bilabiri 1, Bilabiri 2, Bisangbene in Ekeremor LGA of Bayelsa State.

The subgroups make use of the EWER system to get timely information and mitigate conflict quickly before it escalates. This has greatly helped in reducing conflict incidences in those communities.
Another peace actor from Okirika in River State, Tamunomie Wariboko, said: “During training by the P4P (Network), I was taught how to use various methods to address conflicts in my communities.

Chief Mike Odeli, who is a member of the Warri Multi-Stakeholder Platform (MSP) initiated by PIND to tackle an age-old ethnic conflict between the Ijaws and Itsekiris in Delta State, explained that he learnt how to keep the situation from getting even worse and prevent it from ultimately escalating into a violent crisis.

“Since then, I offer my support anywhere I can. As a member of the Warri MSP, I was able to apply the skills acquired from the MSP training to douse tensions between Okere-Urhobo and Okere-Itsekiri communities in Warri, Delta State. I brought the stakeholders together to address the issue and focus on dialogue. Luckily, I was able to douse the tensions and get them to a place of agreement,” Odeli said.

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