By Gbenga Sodeinde in Ado Ekiti
Ex President Olusegun Obasanjo has received the Director General of the World Peace Programme (WPP) and Convener, National Peace Advisers (NPAs), an initiative of the World Peace Organization (WPO) in his Penthouse Abeokuta country home.
Prof. Olumuyiwa Babalola met the former President after a surprise appearance Kenya as Africa leaders adopted the Nairobi Declaration to drive green growth, mitigation and adaptation across Africa.
He praised the former President for his tireless efforts to Peace building in Nigeria and across border of Africa regions.
The Convener used the opportunity to highlight some of the National Peace Advisers’ and Assistants blueprints to include establishment of state-level and community-level peace-building mechanisms across the country for effective conflict resolution.
Babalola said, “We all need to look into our history and culture to discover the mechanisms we have used in the past to prevent the escalation of conflicts and conserve cohesion.
One of the reasons conflicts have spread is that we have allowed community-level peace-building mechanisms that have been instrumental in harmony and cohesion to disappear.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the escalation of violent conflicts between pastoralist and farmer communities is linked to the breakdown of traditional conflict prevention mechanisms.’’
The DG use the avenue to solicite the support of the Federal Government for the organisation’s plans to establish peacebuilding institutions across the board for its long-term sustainable programmes and projects.
He said, “So far, 70 per cent of the zones involving the states have embarked on the path of establishing specialised state-level peace-building modalities and initiatives.
The idea of establishing conflict-resolution mechanisms as conflicts spread in the nooks and crannies of the country is a process that is stretching the capacity of the Federal Government to understand and respond adequately.
“He said”