PIND achieves its mission through strategic partnerships and collaborations with community actors, government, security agents, and non-governmental organisations, local and international, that share similar goals and interests.
By Arinze Chijioke
In January 2017, at least four people were killed, several others injured, and 20 houses burnt following the renewed crisis between Oku Iboku, a community in Itu local government, Akwa Ibom and Ikot Offiong in Odukpani Local government, Cross River State.
These two border communities had been entangled in a protracted boundary adjustment crisis for almost two decades. Fuelled by competition for natural resources, the crisis claimed lives, displaced thousands, and destroyed livelihoods. Residents of the predominantly farming communities could not go to their farms for fear of being killed.
Prevent Council members listen during a presentation.
“There was an increase in poverty and youth unemployment, and the crisis affected the socio-economic development of the areas,” said Etinyin Otu Asuquo Mesembe VI, the paramount ruler of Odukpani. “Farming, fishing, palm wine tapping, and refining of local gin were halted.”
The Niger Delta, rich in natural resources, holds the key to Nigeria’s economic prosperity and greatness, accounting for over 80% of government revenue, 95% of export receipts and 90% of foreign exchange earnings.
Sadly, states in the region (including Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Bayelsa, Delta, and Rivers) have endured decades of conflict, violence, and general insecurity, with their economic development threatened. These insecurities have come in the form of communal crises fuelled by boundary disputes, gang/cult violence, electoral/political violence, and militancy.
The Oku Iboku and Ikot Offiong hostilities defied traditional and political solutions. On 20th October 2017, a motion of urgent public importance was moved by a member representing Odukpani State Constituency in the Cross River State House of Assembly, Hon Bassey Akiba, and seconded by Hon Felicia Bassey, the Deputy Speaker of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, at a Joint Sitting of both State Assemblies with the mandate of proffering solutions to the lingering communal clash between the two sister states. Yet, the crisis lingered.
The PIND Solution
In December 2022, Asuquo and other traditional rulers from Cross River, Akwa Ibom, and Delta States were inaugurated in their respective states as members of the Prevent Council, an initiative of the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) intended to strengthen community peacebuilding structures by engaging traditional rulers as positive influencers and conflict mediators.
A member of the council makes a presentation during one of the workshops.
PIND is a non-profit organisation that promotes peace and equitable economic growth in the Niger Delta region. The NGO’s peacebuilding interventions are evidence-based and targeted at proactively addressing the deeper drivers of conflicts in communities towards reducing and resolving lethal conflicts such as communal/ethnic violence, gang/cult violence, electoral/political violence, and so on. PIND achieves its mission through strategic partnerships and collaborations with community actors, government, security agents, and non-governmental organisations, local and international, that share similar goals and interests.
During the inauguration, PIND’s Executive Director, Tunji Idowu, said that the initiative was an acknowledgement of the critical role that traditional rulers play in maintaining peace and security within their communities to their benefit and that of governments at all tiers.
PIND’s Executive Director, Idowu speaks during the inauguration.
“The central goal of the Prevent Council is to promote and sustain social cohesion and peaceful coexistence in society with no one left behind,” he said. “It emphasises that sustainable peace must involve multilateral engagements with traditional institutions as critical positive influencers and conflict mediators in their respective states and communities.”
The traditional rulers were trained in conflict prevention, mitigation, resolution, and early response mechanisms, as well as the role of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as a conflict management technique. Five local governments, including Yakurr, Obubra, Biase, Ikom, and Odukpani, benefited from the initiative in Cross River. In Akwa Ibom, Itu and Mbo were the benefitting local governments, and Ughelli North and Udu benefited in Delta State.
Chukwudi Njoku, PIND’s capacity building coordinator, explained that Cross River State had more benefitting local governments because it had more conflict incidents and fatalities related to land and boundary disputes.
Constituting An Arbitration Committee
On return to Odukpani and with what knowledge he gained from the Prevent Council training, Asuquo-who has been the paramount ruler for seven years- swung into action by constituting an arbitration committee made up of the head of the over forty clans in Odukpani with him as the chairman. This committee takes charge of adjudicating in conflict situations.
“After our resolution, I met with the paramount ruler of Itu LGA, Edidem Edet Inyang, and resolved the lingering conflict,” he said. I told him that we could not continue to kill ourselves and perpetuate enmity since the government had yet to step in to make boundary adjustments.”
The two warring communities brokered an agreement in 2022, and peace has existed since then. Apart from the Oku Iboku and Ikot Offiong crisis, there were pockets of crisis in Eki East and West, Ito North and South Clans-all in Odukpani- some of which were chieftaincy-induced.
When grievances arise, Asuquo says aggrieved parties are encouraged to write a petition, based on which the arbitration committee acts.
“We invite the parties and hear from both sides,” he said. “We also take independent evidence from the communities to restore peace.”
Asuquo explained that the committee also uses the carrot and stick approach, informing clan heads who do not want to accept dialogue and peaceful resolution that the governor will receive a recommendation to withdraw their recognition.
“These approaches have helped us stabilize the clans and restored sanity. We let communities involved know that apart from the loss of lives during the crisis, it stops the government from bringing development,” he said. “Areas you could not enter freely have become accessible again.”
Because of his role in calming the crises in Odukpani, Asuquo said the state government recruited him to intervene in crises in Biase and other locations.
“The Prevent Council initiative has been helpful because we never thought of setting up a committee,” Asuquo said. Our people now better understand the importance of peaceful coexistence and the need to resolve disagreements amicably.”
Like Oku Iboku and Ikot Offiong, New Netim, and Odukpani, all in Odukpani LGA, endured years of land-related/indigenous settler crises, which led to loss of lives, property, and displacements.
According to the acting village head of New Netim, Augustine Okpa, New Netim was formally in Akampka. But after the government carved it into Odukpani, they (Odukpani) started seeing the people (New Netim) as strangers/tenants, resulting in conflicts.
After his inauguration and training as a member of the prevention council, Okpa held meetings with the youths who wanted to resort to conflict and told them about the need to embrace peace.
“I gave examples of communities that resorted to war and the consequences, “he said. “Since then, we have expressed our willingness to live in peace.”
Professor Raphael Offiong, the consultant facilitating the Conflict Prevent Council in Cross River State, said the Prevent Council has helped restore peace and stability among communities by educating traditional rulers on conflict resolution and management.
Research Associate at Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr Emmanuel Chiwetalu Ossai said that PIND’s initiative stands out because the foundation adopts a bottom-top approach to address the root causes of conflict, shaped by the contributions, experiences and desires of the local people who are impacted.
Another member speaks during a workshop.
He noted that a lot of peace-building efforts have failed because there is often no extensive involvement of the community in the processes and construction of strategies and approaches, adding however, that it is important to also have a balance between the top-down and the bottom-top approach.
“Like the Niger Delta region, other regions are grappling with a variety of challenges which require initiative such as PIND’s to entrench peace, “he said. “The Federal government must think of how to adopt similar approaches to solving conflict situations.”
Need For More Training
Despite the Prevent Council in mitigating conflicts, Offiong says there have been some challenges, among which are the lack of regular intervention meetings at the community level and new drivers of conflicts between communities with a history of violence.
The inauguration and training in December 2022 were not the only times that members of the Prevent Council came together. In April 2023, PIND held another training, followed by some community-level advocacy and reconciliation activities. But Asuquo says it is not enough.
“I have always been the only one attending from the Odukpani Traditional Rulers Council, which has over forty clan heads,” he said adding that “There is a need to expand the training so that other leaders can also benefit. The leaders also need firsthand training to be able to intervene whenever there is a crisis.”
Offiong says there is also the challenge of funding to ensure that there is constant and continuous monitoring and evaluations of the activities of Prevent Council members, adding that community members also need expanded training on livelihoods and alternative options for survival beyond farming, which in most cases is the root cause of conflict.