IPCR Projecting Nigeria’s Peace Policy To Sustain Global Agenda

The Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) has mapped out strategies to use Nigeria’s National Peace Policy (NPP) as an overarching framework that coordinates efforts across all tiers of government, which aligns squarely with the UN Sustaining Peace Agenda.

Indications to this development emerged during the Second High- Level Expert Dialogue on the draft Nigeria’s National Peace Policy (NPP), convened by the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), the Office of Strategic Preparedness and Resilience (OSPRE) and Triple Peace Africa in Abuja on Friday in line with the landmark twin resolutions of the UN Security Council and General Assembly in 2016 (UNSCR 2282 and UNGA 70/262).

As a matter of urgency, the NPP according to the Director General of IPCR, Dr. Joseph Ochogwu, is institutionalized coordination, and a clearly mapped roadmap for implementation of peace efforts made by diverse institutions and professionals in various fields to tackle the increasing conflicts in Nigeria.

The country is ravaged by insurgency in the Northeast, the farmer-herder violence in the North central, the separatist tensions in the Southeast, the banditry and kidnapping that have ravaged the Northwest, the proliferation of small arms and the fragmentation of community trust, which made the country’s peace and security landscape more  complex, layered, and demands commensurate responses.

According to Ochogwu,  the National Peace Policy  coordinates efforts across all tiers of government, aligns the actions of state and non-state actors, and ensures that every naira spent on peacebuilding produces measurable, sustainable, and people-centred outcomes.

He said “The draft National Peace Policy (NPP) developed by IPCR represents exactly that framework. It is the product of years of painstaking research, broad-based consultations across the six geopolitical zones, and the distilled wisdom of communities, traditional leaders, civil society, academia, and government institutions.

“It is a living document designed to serve as the normative and operational spine of Nigeria’s peacebuilding architecture. Today, we deepen our commitment to bringing it fully to life.”

According to him the NPP is designed to harmonise the multiplicity of conflict prevention, management, and peacebuilding interventions carried out by dozens of federal agencies, state governments, local government authorities, faith-based organisations, traditional institutions, and development partners to avoid duplication, resource wastage, institutional rivalry, and communities that fall through the gaps.

NPP also provides the legal and policy legitimacy for an integrated peacebuilding ecosystem. Without such a policy, interventions remain ad hoc, externally-driven, and structurally disconnected from democratic accountability. The NPP anchors peacebuilding within Nigeria’s own governance framework and ensures that it is owned, funded, and sustained by Nigerians themselves.

The NPP enables evidence-based policy-making. It establishes the baseline standards against which progress can be measured, early warning systems can be built, and resources can be rationally allocated. It transforms peacebuilding from a reactive, crisis-driven enterprise into a strategic, preventive, and developmental pursuit.

And perhaps most fundamentally, the NPP is a signal to Nigerian citizens, partners, and to the international community that Nigeria is serious about peace as a development imperative. It communicates that the country understands, following the SDG 16 framework, that there can be no sustainable development without peace, and no lasting peace without development.

“Furthermore, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly SDG 16 on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, provides a normative anchor that reinforces the NPP’s vision of inclusive, accountable governance as a prerequisite for sustainable peace,” the IPCR boss said.

The Director General of OSPRE Dr. Chris Ngwodo, in his remarks said the NPP is a compressive framework for peace building, adding the dialogue is designed to bring experts across the peace budding sector to deliberate and achieve consensus for the whole society especially in these trying times in the country.

Chairman of the House Committee on Peace building, who was represented by Hon Joshua Ado Gana, said that restoration of peace building and social cohesion in Nigeria will bring back the principles of love for humanity even as he urged all Nigerians to embrace tolerance.

Dr Tahir Usman Tahir, Director General of Kaduna state Bureau of Interfaith said the engagement was timely because of conflicts around the country stressing that the NPP is very strategic and important to driving meaningful development.

The NPP appears to resonate with the African Union Agenda 2063 (The Africa We Want) which envisions a peaceful and secure Africa as the foundational prerequisite for continental renaissance. Flagship Area 4 of Agenda 2063, dedicated to a peaceful and secure Africa’s calls on member states to strengthen national peace building architectures and invest in conflict prevention.