Strengthening Local Peace Building Infrastructure and Leadership for the Development of Rural Communities

Patrick I. Ukase, Ph.D

(Associate Professor)

Department of History & International Studies,

Kogi State University, Anyigba

Nigerians from the North, South, and West rolled out there drums on 1^st October, 1960 to celebrate the transfer of power from the British colonial administration to the country’s indigenous leadership. Despite the celebration that greeted this new dawn, the newly independent nation was quickly confronted with several neck-breaking challenges, which almost threatened its corporate existence. Several reasons have been adduced for the series of crises that bedeviled the nation at independence and are still threatening its corporate existence.

At independence, Nigeria inherited a weak social and political structure, a defective and unbalanced federation, an intensification of ethnic consciousness and rivalries, and above all, a highly inexperienced leadership. One of the multiplier implications of this fragile state of affairs was the intensification of ethnic consciousness and rivalry which culminated to the Nigerian Civil War that lasted for three years (1967-1970).

Since the end of the Civil War in 1970, the nation has continued to be inundated with several challenges especially disputes and conflicts. Some of these threats are political and electioneering conflicts; land, communal and chieftaincy disputes, ethno-religious crises, ethnic militias, boundary disputes, cultism, and criminality. For most of these threats, the Nigerian Defence and Security Forces (DSF) are unable to respond to the antics of the perpetrators.

 

Apart from these external threats arising from the activities of Fulani herdsmen, the state has been inundated with several internal disputes such as communal, land and chieftaincy disputes. The cumulative implication is that, our rural dwellers who constitute 75 percent of the country’s total population, and who are responsible for feeding the nation have perpetually been confronted with multiple security challenges, leading to population movements and displacements, food insecurity, educational dislocation, and the destruction of the rural economy. Whenever these crises occur, children in the rural areas are thrown out of school for several months or years. The rural economy is dislocated, creating and inflicting horrendous poverty in these communities and the nation generally.

 

Therefore, it has become imperative to examine avenues of strengthening local peace building infrastructure and leadership to avert the avalanche of disputes and conflicts that inundates our communities in contemporary times. Such local peace building infrastructure and leadership are critical in achieving peace and sustainable development.

In his 1992 report, “An Agenda for Peace,” former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali introduced the concept of peace building to the UN as “action to identify and support structures, which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict.”

Peace building is an intervention that is designed to prevent the start or resumption of violent conflict by creating a sustainable peace. Peace building activities address the root causes or potential causes of violence, create a societal expectation for peaceful conflict resolution and stabilize society politically and socioeconomically.

Peace building is essentially a process of strengthening a society’s capacity to manage conflict in non-violent ways. Granted that Conflict is inevitable and natural in all human societies, it can also transit to positive change or descend into violence. Peace building must therefore be capable of enhancing trust between individuals and between groups in a society. It should also be able to restore the legitimacy of state institutions.

Peace building is about bringing together the different actors that are engaged in the rebuilding of a country. People from inside and outside a conflict – affected country need to work together to understand their different views; define priorities with a view to achieving lasting and sustainable compromise. This will enable a better alignment of national policy-making, external assistance, and local priorities. We strongly believe that peace building is about deep, long-term transformations. This requires an integrated approach engaging a diverse range of actors.

At an aggregate level, one could distinguish four broad theoretical underpinnings of change that can collectively and effectively drive a peace building process:

•  Address drivers and root causes (e.g. horizontal inequalities)
•  Build institutions and capacities of individuals, communities and authorities to manage conflict and deliver services (e.g. political, security, justice and government institutions that deliver social services)
• Enhance social cohesion and build trust among social groups (society-society relations) (e.g. reconciliation processes)
• Build trust in and legitimacy of governments (state-society relations) (e.g. political dialogue)

Countries emerging from conflict together with development partners, the UN and other international organizations, have articulated a shared vision of peace building through the International Dialogue on Peace building and State-building which can be applied effectively in resolving post conflict issues in our rural communities. These include: Legitimate (inclusive) politics; people’s security (this must necessarily go beyond the conventional military or state centric perspective to include the human dimension of security); access to justice; employment generation and livelihoods support; accountable revenue management and service delivery.

Post conflict peace building processes are basically divided into three. These include: stabilizing the post-conflict zone, restoring state institutions and dealing with social and economic issues. Here, the political leadership has a critical role to play. Activities within the first dimension reinforce state stability post-conflict and discourage former combatants from returning to war (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration) or DDR.

Second dimension activities revolves around building state capacity to provide basic public goods and increase state legitimacy. Programs in the third dimension build a post-conflict society’s ability to manage conflicts peacefully and promote socio-economic development.

Note that while different “indigenous” communities utilize different conflict resolution techniques, most of them share the common characteristics described as those mentioned above. Leaders within our respective communities need to adopt and utilize these techniques; modifying them to suit their local environments. There is need to understand that peace building techniques are not cast on stones, they require flexibility in the process to achieve the ends of a peaceful environment. Since indigenous peace building practices arise from local communities, they are tailored to local contexts and culture in a way that generalized international peace building approaches are not.

It is important to note also that most of the peace building infrastructure identified especially by the UN focuses more on state conflicts, neglecting rural or community based conflicts. It is therefore critical that we domesticate some of these approaches to our local environments with a view to seeing how the ends of peace could be achieved in some of our restive communities.

Leadership is very fundamental in the peace building process. Leadership is expected to provide direction to the led during and after conflicts. In our rural communities, several strands of leadership can be identified. These include Political leadership (Council Chairmen, supervisors and councilors), traditional leaders (mostly second, third and fourth class chiefs), spiritual leaders (the clergy), Community leaders (Village Heads, Youth Leaders, and Leaders of Market Associations), the leadership of settler communities, and of course heads of security (the police and vigilante).

Consequently, to achieve these ends, the activities of leadership must be tailored towards achieving the following: an environment supportive of self-sustaining, durable peace; reconcile opponents and finding compromise out of antagonistic viewpoints; prevent conflict from restarting or reoccurring; integrate civil society and various groups within the community; create an  environment predicated on the rule of law, equity and fairness; address underlying structural and societal issues within the locality.

Leadership is critical in developing the necessary infrastructure required in peace building. The quality of leadership is therefore important in determining the quality of life and the peace that exist within the locality. Strengthening the leadership and society’s capacity to manage conflict in non-violent ways on a constant basis is very imperative. Granted that Conflict is inevitable and natural in all human societies, the society, particularly its leadership must imbibe the skills required to manage conflicts in such a way that it transits to positive change instead of descending into violence. Leadership must therefore be capable of enhancing trust between individuals and between groups in a society. It should also be able to restore the legitimacy of state institutions. We strongly believe that peace building is about deep, long-term transformations. This requires an integrated approach engaging a diverse range of actors.