The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) through its Peace and Conflict Management Department, has resolved over 39, 167 conflicts across the country in the last three years, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has said.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the refresher course and review session for NSCDC peace desk officers at the Corps headquarters in Abuja on Thursday, Mathew Alao, the team leader, governance and peace building unit of the UNDP said the feat was unprecedented.
He disclosed that the NSCDC resolved 12,144 cases in 2016, 13, 377 in 2017 and 13,646 in 2018.
Alao said the UNDP was ready to make more investment in the Peace and Conflict Management Department, following the feat it had achieved over the years.
The representative of UNDP also said his organization has discovered that it is bette to invest more in training NSCDC in peace resolution than spending money to purchase weapon.
He revealed that the UNDP will also create a department in the Nigeria Police so as to complement what the NSCDC is doing.
He urged the trained officer in the Corps Peace Unit to continue to do what he described as a good job of conflict resolution, adding that such efforts are always appreciated.
He said UNDP decided to support six state commands’ Peace Unit that have been doing well in mediation with equipment needed to perform better.
“Because of your achievement, it’s better to invest more in you (Peace and Conflict Management Department) than in buying weapons for the organisation.
“We are also planning to establish a peace and conflict resolution unit in the police because we believe that the Police and NSCDC have the capacity to resolve more than 50% conflicts in the country,” he stated.
The Commandant General of the NSCDC, Abdullahi Gana Mohammadu said only peace desk officers from the Northeast, Northwest and North central geopolitical zones were invited for the five-day refreshers’ workshop.
The Commandant General, who was represented at the occasion by the Deputy Commandant General in charge of Crisis Management Directorate, Emmanuel Adeoye, said the workshop was to equip them in the areas of efficient local community peace building, peace-making and conflict management at the grassroots levels.
He said this will help them in identifying existing gaps, designing best approaches to conflict management and applying conflicts models and simulating civil case scenarios of emerging conflict trends peculiar to these geopolitical zones.
The UNDP, who facilitated the workshop, also donated office equipment to the Peace and Conflict Management desks in the state commands of the NSCDC across the country.
