ABUJA – Mr Osita Oshita, Director-General of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) has said that the institute is involved at strategic level in dealing with threat to peace in the country.
Oshita, who made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja, also said most threats to peace had been caused by the Boko Haram insurgency.
NAN reports that Boko Haram has attacked Nigeria’s police and military, politicians, schools, religious buildings, public institutions and civilians with increasing regularity since 2009.
“The institute has a map of the conflict zones in Nigeria, used for analysis, which is fed into appropriate government agencies for further information for policy makers.
“IPCR had been dealing with interfaith issues in the northern part of Nigeria, by assembling the whole northern states for an interfaith dialogue session for Peace and Security, he said.
The D-G said that the project aimed at attaining peace in the country was being carried out in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). [eap_ad_1] Oshita said that the interfaith dialogue session was used to deal with radicalisation arising from what people preached in the mosques and churches which influenced people negatively.
“In a way, we use such platforms to pass on messages concerning how people need to dialogue across faith.
“It involves how preachers need to be sensitive to the kind of messages preached so that they do not unwittingly radicalise young people and then put them on the street against perceived enemies.
“So we use such platforms to preach peace and to build alliances between faith, principally between Muslims and Christians where the insurgency is a major problem,” Oshita said.
NAN recalls that IPCR is committed to providing Africa with policy options based on result-oriented research while building capacities and intervening in conflicts spots.
This is to enable Africa emerge as a secure, peaceful and democratic continent where the principles of the rule of law and human dignity are respected. (NAN)
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