EU launches project to curb violence, conflicts in N/Delta

The Search for Common Ground has launched a European Union (EU) funded project to curb violence, conflicts and criminality in the three states of the Niger Delta region including Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers. The project tagged; ‘State Peace Architecture (SPA)’ is to bring together actors and stakeholders from security architecture of the state, including government […]

The Search for Common Ground has launched a European Union (EU) funded project to curb violence, conflicts and criminality in the three states of the Niger Delta region including Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers.

The project tagged; ‘State Peace Architecture (SPA)’ is to bring together actors and stakeholders from security architecture of the state, including government officials, traditional rulers, human rights groups, media etc to address the root cause of violence in communities across the region.

Speaking during the inauguration of the Bayelsa State Peace Architecture in Yenagoa, the Search for Common Ground Country Director in Nigeria, Mrs Fatima Madaki, said it was important to bring the stakeholders in the state together to dialogue on how to address security issues from the grassroots in order to curb criminality and violence from the coastal communities.

Represented by the National Conflicts Analyst in Search for Common Ground office, Mr Andy Nkemneme, Mrs Madaki, stated that Niger Delta having grapple with multi-dimensional issues such as environmental degradation, poverty, political instability, insecurity, militarization among others, which pushed the inhabitants of the region to seek alternative means of survival, leading to involvement in all forms of criminality.

She stated that it is the reason the Search for Common Ground in consortium with Stakeholders Democratic Network (SDN), Foundation for Partnership Initiative in Niger Delta (PIND) and Academic Associates Peace Work (AAPW) is implementing an 18-month action with the overall goal of fostering inclusive community security approaches to address the systemic drivers of violence and criminality in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers State.

She said: “This is the inaugural meeting of the SPA for Bayelsa State, SPA is a Security Peace Architecture, it is important that we bring together actors and stakeholders in the security architecture of the state to come together and dialogue on how to address security issues that come from the grassroots, as it is said, this project is being finance by EU, but we are looking at how to cut out criminality and violence from the three states of Niger Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states.

“So we have search architecture which has been proven over the years to have actually worked in so many communities in the world, Search for Common Ground is in 33 countries in the world, and our peace architecture has proven to be very effective, because we start looking at how to secure the communities, if every particular wards that make up the communities are secure, the entire state is secure, so our architecture starts from the community where we try to create a structure for people to address security issues in their communities.

“The specimen issues are better tackle by the people themselves, for they understand themselves, they know themselves, and they know how to solve their problems, at times it is difficult to come from outside, bring ideas and impose on the people while people themselves know how to handle themselves, so our security architecture tries to create such a structure for the community level to the local government and then to the state, at the state level, we now look at the issue that cannot be resolve at the community and local levels.

The SPA will work with the state actors to handle issues and resolve them, we will use this body to ensure that conflict in Bayelsa state are resolve before they escalate to the level that could not be control, that is why we are here.” She said.

The Head in the Bayelsa office of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Mrs Esther Boro and other Stakeholders in the region commended the European Union and Search for Common Ground for their peace initiative in the Niger Delta region.