PEACE ARCHITECTURE DIALOGUE ACROSS 6 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS (LGAS) NAMELY: AKKO, BALANGA, BILLIRI, GOMBE, KALTUNGO, AND SHONGOM OF GOMBE STATE, NIGERIA

Background

North East Nigeria, and particularly Gombe State, has seen its reputation marred by recurrent ethno-religious violence and communal violence that has claimed more than 3,000 lives since the 1990s. Although the communal clashes are often framed as inter-religious, the roots lie in competition for power and economic resources distributed along exclusionary ethnic lines. Government policies that discriminate against citizens who live outside their area of ancestral origin, called “non-indigenes,” lie at the heart of the conflict. The conflict has become driven by a volatile brand of zero-sum identity politics between predominately Christian indigenes and Muslim non-indigenes. The violence has contributed to increased alienation between Christians and Muslim and between majority ethnic and minority ethnic. (Human Rights Watch, “Spiraling Violence,” October 2012).

Gombe State which happens to be one of the axis in northeast Nigeria that is faced with multiple and often interlinked forms of violence from political violence and criminal gangs such as ‘’Yan Kalari’’ to organize crime and terrorist attacks that plague their state and communities bearing enormous and long lasting human, social and economic costs.

The youths aged from 15-29 years account for the majority of the casualties associated with armed violence due to lack of access to education, basic social service amenities, economic opportunities, grievance over injustice, and a generalized distrust in the capacity of the state to account to its citizens which is fueling a circle of poverty, hopelessness and frustration among the youths from the political leaders.

PROGRAM CONTENT

Energetic Youth Heritage Initiative organized a one day peace architecture dialogue for security actors, faith leaders, community leaders and CBOs in six LGAs of Gombe state. These include: Akko, Balanga, Billiri, Gombe, Kaltungo and Shongom LGAs. This was organized under a funded program by state2state in Gombe state ‘’building the resilience of youth in responding to conflict and youth restiveness. The aim of the dialogue was to strengthen the relationship/collaboration of stakeholders on peace building. Secondly, to strengthen the established platform in order to showcase the contribution of stakeholder towards achieving peace building at the grass root level.

The participants were drawn from different organizations. These include the representatives of women group leaders, religious leaders, security agencies, youth groups, civil society organizations and community-based organizations among others.

Opening Session

The dialogue began at 9:35am with a word of prayer from two participants of the two major recognized faiths, after which introduction was done and ground rules were set. The ED of EYHI in person of Dr. Michael Danzaria welcomed all the participants present and thanked them for honoring their invitation. He said ‘’the dialogue is significant and timely in different dimensions and has bearing not just on the current peace and security challenges of the state and encouraged holistic and inclusive processes.  He urged them to feel free and make positive contributions. He also charged them to take the issue of insecurity and recklessness very serious, that the dialogue is not only for security actors. He further encouraged participants to be united, that they should not allow anything or anybody from anywhere to disunite them and through that, they will restore the peace and dignity of their communities. He finally encouraged them to look deep and strategize a lasting solution that will bring lasting peace in the society and he wished them a fruitful deliberation.

The EYHI project/keynote review

Mr. Shedrack presented EYHI project review. While presenting the keynote on EW and critical analyses documented during the project evaluation and review, he highlighted some of the EW recorded from the inception of the conducted workshop on EW/ERM and took time to explain the findings and shared some of the reports with the participants based on feedback from the security actors. The findings were to inform the participants on the causes of youth restiveness and engagement in conflicts and also to proffer solutions.

The dialogue also featured interactive and group discussion sessions in which participants were divided into five groups to discuss on the possible way forward on EWR and EWM in their communities and organizations, among the groups were: prone communities, government officials, faith leaders, security actor, and people with disability and there after which every group presented their work. The aim of dividing the group was to share responsibilities based on areas of specialization and produce a possible way forward. Some of the EWR identified by the participants are as follows:

Identified early warning signs:

• Unusual movements of strange faces.
• Unlawful possession of weapons by youths.
• Land encroachment
• Aggressive religious post by youths on social media.
• Hate speech
• False teaching by religious leaders
• Group of youth with unlawful arms.
• Rumors
• Large number of strange faces in the community.
• Farmers/herders misunderstanding
• Land disputes
• Delay or denial of justice.
• Unnecessary gatherings.
• Political thuggery.

 Identified early response

• Establish contact with ward head, district heads and security agencies.
• Dialogue and negotiations.
• Constant reporting of unusual gathering to the nearby security offices.
• Proper teachings from the religious leaders.
• Creating awareness and sensitization on the effects of thuggery.

In conclusion, the participants were able to provide convincing ERs as way forward in cropping out youth restiveness and engagement in conflicts.  The dialogue was wrapped up with closing remark from EYHI ED. He thanked all the participants for taking much of their time to be part of the d dialogue and also for their positive contributions. He gave them assurance that all their contributions will be documented and will be adequately used. He finally wished them save journey back to their various destinations and group pictures were snapped.

ANNEXES

Kaltungo

Shongom

Balanga

AKKO

Billiri

Gombe