Institute moves to resolve conflicts in Imo council areas

The Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) Abuja has commenced a capacity building exercise on conflict resolution strategies for community leaders in the Ideato South council area of Imo state.

The Director General of the Institute Dr. Bakut Bakut speaking at a two-day workshop explained that the exercise became inevitable following reports by the aggrieved indigenes that their lands were grabbed for the establishment of a private university instead of a government owned university as well as by numerous chieftaincy tussles and land disputes rocking the Local Government Area.

“Most of these we see are issues that could be resolved by using various traditional and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) strategies hence we are here to help them to build their capacity and to encourage them to maintain peace and avoid violent conflict,” he stated.

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Bakut who spoke through the Deputy Director Internal Conflict Prevention and Resolution of the Institute, Andy Nkemneme enjoined the participants which included traditional rulers, Presidents General, women and youth leaders to embrace peace in all their dealings which he described as an essential ingredient for meaningful development and growth.

“We need peace in our community and we want to achieve this everywhere we go and as women and youth leaders, presidents general, you have a crucial role to play in this regard,” he said and disclosed that a baseline was conducted in the council area in February this year and listed proliferation of chieftaincy titles,

town union and community governance conflict, land dispute, self-determination, unpopular government policies, usurpation of land as among the prominent sources of conflict, added that the training objective was to increase the understanding of the stakeholders on peace building.

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Efe Ijoyah, Assistant Chief Research Fellow of the Institute in her lecture enumerated types and some sources of conflict as well as their implications such as poverty, damage to infrastructure and institutions of production and assets.

Efe urged the people to always shun acts capable of breaching peace, warning that doing otherwise would lead to break up of communities, social networks, forced displacement and increase in unemployment.