As part of efforts to ensure peace and conducive environment before, during and after the forthcoming 2027 general election in Nigeria, a coalition of women led civil society organisations under the agies of Women Situation Room Nigeria, WRSRN have organised a stakeholders engagement and training of over fifty youth peace advocates in Ebonyi State. The dialogue and training was to emphasize ways of effectively investing in peace and conflict mitigation.
Participants at the programme include traditional rulers, representatives of government, security agencies, the Media, selected youth leaders, Civil Society Organisations, among others.
In her address, the State Coordinator of WSRN, Lorieth Nwafor said the engagement was an extension of activities in commemoration of the 2026 World Day of Peace commemorated annually on September 21.
She said the essence of the meeting was to engage stakeholders on effective investment in peace, adding that the organisation had earlier trained over 50 youths advocates on peace building to serve as foot soldiers in spreading the message of peace across the state.
The Coordinator further explained that the Women Situation Room Nigeria, WSRN, is an arm of Women International League for Peace and Freedom, WILPF, an international organisation operating in 10 States in Nigeria, including Ebonyi.
"The Women Situation Room is an arm of the WILFP dedicated to training women, youths, the media and other stakeholders on Election monitoring, observation and reporting. The arm also promotes peaceful society through advocacies, training and retraining of youths on peace building. We just concluded the training of over 50 youths on peace building in Ebonyi State before engaging the stakeholders" she explained.
Nwafor revealed that one of the participating organisations, the Young Men Network, has developed a social media App that would help in extensive gathering and sharing of information concerning early warnings. She said the WSRN was committed to replicating and harnessing the gains of the App to direct its activities and advocacies.
Speaking on the theme of the year's International Day of Peace: "Investing in Peace for Everyone, Everywhere and Every day", she said that peace building require deliberate effort of all and sundries, noting that the engagements and trainings were both necessary and timely considering the approaching 2027 elections in Nigeria.
The stakeholders at the meeting prescribed the prioritization of youths in discussions around peace and conflict prevention in Nigeria, stressing that the potentials of the youth could be harnessed positively when effectively engaged.
Doris Ajah-Okohu, who anchored discussions at the dialogue said youths are strategic in peace building because they are the ones often used as tools by self-seeking politicians and other elites to engineer crisis in the communities.
"A proper dialogue with the youths to understand and deal with their grievances is necessary in averting the impending crisis", she said, adding that investment in aggressive youths' reorientation is germane in peace building.
"The youths come from families where they have parents, brothers and sisters, and if they are reoriented to understand that their families and loved ones are the victims of violence and crisis, they won't make themselves available to be used.
"Even with the influence of some self-seeking elites, if we work on the psyche of our youths, we can redirect them to become instruments of peace rather than violence", Okohu emphasized.
On his part, the State Coordinator, National Human Rights Commission, Christopher Okorie and others who made inputs insisted that lasting peace can only be achieved when equal rights and justice is entrenched in the nation's social, economic and political life. They admonished the government to emphasize fairness and justice for all sections while politicians should desist from giving guns to the youths but should rather engage them meaningfully as positive instruments of political reforms, not thugs, especially as the elections are around the corner.
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