ABUJA – The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has advised the Federal Government to build structures to sustain the peace achieved during the 2015 general elections to prevent conflict in the country.
Dr Ozonnia Ojielo, the UNDP Cluster Director/Regional Cluster Leader, Governance and Peace-building in Africa, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
Ojielo spoke after he met with stakeholders on the project document for an “Integrated UN Reconstruction and Recovery Programme in the North-East”.
He said Nigeria had existing structures for peace, stressing that it include peace committees, task force on violence prevention, state and community initiatives on peace and conflict prevention.
“All we need to do is to look at what can work in the country and how they can all fit together and act in preventive mode rather than reactive mode.
“It has been done in many places and Nigeria has shown that it can do it.
“ We are fairly confident that with political will from government at states and local government levels and active engagement of critical stakeholders in the country, it can be done.
“Nigerians proved it during the last elections that they are peaceful people and that they can manage crisis and violence and come out like roses,’’ the director said.
He, however, commended retired Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar- led Peace Committee for ensuring peace after the general elections.
Ojielo said his mission to Nigeria from UNDP Regional Office in Ethiopia was to come with new thinking, ideas and submit a proposal to the Federal Government through the UNDP Country Office on how to sustain the peace recorded during the general elections.
He suggested that the Federal Government should institutionalise the peace model used during the 2015 elections to prevent violence and crisis in future elections.
“The mission to look at Nigeria’s security challenges and proffer solutions around issues of prevention and peace building alone is not enough.
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“There are linkages around reconciliation to community security, issues of peace dividend, issues of local governance and service delivery, they are all integrated and they have conflict prevention architecture.’’
He told NAN that UNDP had prepared some analytical brief that looked at where Nigeria was and the opportunities available to sustain the peace it had achieved.
Ojielo said the brief looked at gains made around the general elections in terms of election process.
He said UNDP had made its recommendations and suggestions based on that with various options, noting: “the idea is not to be prescriptive, but to put opinions on the table.
“We hope that government can covey a stakeholders’ conference where stakeholders can look at our recommendations and interrogate them.
“It is a beginning of a process. The conversation will go for a long while but we have the technical capacity on all the relevant issues that will be there.
“We will support the process through UNDP Nigeria office. We will support the conversation and Nigeria will benefit from the best possible examples of how it’s been done elsewhere.
“The issue is to develop what work best for Nigeria and build on what has already existed.’’
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ojielo is expected to submit the proposal to UNDP Country Office this week for further actions. (NAN)
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