Nigeria needs to be stable in order for the rest of Africa to be at...

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Federal Government of Nigeria in 2000 established the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) to serve as a government “think tank” to facilitate national and continental integration through domestic and regional peacebuilding and conflict management. The Institute which is under the supervision of the Minister of State II in the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, perceiving that the diversity and complexity of conflicts in Nigeria required a comprehensive focus on peacebuilding and that to achieve this objective it was necessary to ensure a socially inclusive approach to the formulation, adoption, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the policy, proceeded to design the National Peace Policy (NPP). The NPP seeks to address tension areas that could undermine Nigeria’s development and was evolved through a “bottom-up”, highly participatory process that lasted seven whole years till 2009, the ownership of which was vested in the participating public, as required in democratic settings. The draft policy document has been described as a paradigm for inclusive policy making and a framework for Nigeria’s peace effort. It is also hailed as a document that has elicited the foundational principles for the peace and stability of the country while drawing attention to specific areas of public concern and defining the set of actions necessary to streamline appropriate, efficient service delivery. The NPP as drafted is capable of “perfecting the social engineering process that Nigeria requires to promote peace”, a unique quality that has caused analysts to describe it as a template to enable the international community especially African countries to “mobilize the critical mass to contribute to conflict prevention, diversity management and sustainable peacebuilding. Now, the NPP seeks to “provide a framework for peaceful social transformation”, which is the avowed drive of the President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration. The question, then: why does the administration that vows to transform the society shy away from ratifying the Peace Policy, which is adequate to address the country’s lingering, sometimes seemingly intractable conflicts?

Please, be among the first to sign to this petition and pass it on to friends and acquaintances to persuade the Government of Nigeria to ratify the National Peace Policy.