By Friday Idachaba, Lokoja.
PASTORAL Resolve (PARE), a Non-Governmental Organisation working on Community Initiatives to Promote Peace (CIPP) Project has advocated early management of conflicts through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as the best communal crisis management option.
Mr David Gatari, CIPP Chief of Party, Mercy Corps, disclosed this on Saturday at the 2023 annual Peace Meeting of Bakumba Community in Lokoja Local Government of Kogi State.
Gatari stressed the need for internal crisis management rather than allowing them to assume conflict and violent dimensions that would demand costly wide spectrum resolutions.
The CIPP Party Chief noted that constant resort to litigations or running to government for intervention in crisis situations had often lead to more acrimony, disharmony and disquiet causing set backs in rural development.
He urged the people to be their brothers’ keepers and stop fuelling crisis that could lead to loss of lives and destruction of property.
Alhaji Umar Dari Baba, Executive Director, Pastoral Resolve (PARE) in his remarks said that intra and inter communal conflicts in any given society was inevitable but “what actually guarantees peace is the timely or early management and resolution of disagreements.”
The Executive Director called on peace resolution managers to sensitise the people to always engage in profitable activities for the socio-economic development of their areas rather than engaging in criminality.
He also advised parents in rural communities to take the education of their children seriously by sending them to school in order to brighten their future saying that education remains the bedrock of any nation.
Baba commended the existing peaceful coexistence in the community between the Bassa speaking indigenes and their Fulani counterparts who settled in the area and urged them to sustain the tempo.
Also speaking, Mohammed Munji Sanusi, Programme Manager with PARE, applauded the Community’s annual trust building event under the CIPP Project oversight.
Sanusi said that the community’s commitment to peaceful coexistence through the annual Peace event held at their event centre, irrespective of their different backgrounds, was commendable.
In their separate remarks, the Aguma-Bassa of Bakumba, James Ododo and Sarki Fulani (Ado) in Bakumba, Alhaji Muhammed Musa attributed their peaceful coexistence to the strong conflict resolution umpire in the community.
They commended the CIPP and Mercy Corps for their love, commitment and encouragement in entrenching and sustaining peace as well as continued renewal of confidence in the people of the community.
Highlights of the event was the drama piece presentation and joint communal cooking of traditional meals displayed by the Bassa and Fulani people in Bakumba community without recourse to ethnic or religious affiliations or backgrounds. (Ends)