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Nigeria is to get an early warning body by the end of
the year to avert
ethnic and other civil unrest 'The Guardian' reported on Monday. The Lagos
daily quoted the director
of Conflict Prevention in the Presidency, Udenta
O. Udenta as saying that government and the Institute for Peace and
Conflict Resolution were thinking of setting up the unit
in Abuja. He said
it would comprise all bodies that promote peace in Nigeria.
Nigeria has been plagued by civil unrest since its return to civilian
rule
in 1998. Current flashpoints include the southeastern state of Ebonyi,
where at least 27 people died and more than
1,000 were displaced as a
result of a land dispute between communities in Iro and Afikpo South local
councils. Clashes
between the two communities claimed nine lives last
year, while over a dozen people went missing.
The effects of
communal clashes in June in the central state of Nasarawa
were still being felt this week in neighbouring Benue State,
to which an
estimated 50,000 members of Nasarawa's Tiv minority fled. Relief officials
in Benue reported overcrowding
in primary schools that have been
accomodating IDPs outside the Benue capital, Makurdi.
Meanwhile, the managing
director of the Shell Petroleum Development
Company, Ron Van den Berg, told a commission investigating human rights
abuses
in Nigeria over the past decades that his company had been making
moves
to settle its differences with the Ogoni community.
Shell abandoned its operations in Ogoniland in 1993 in the face
of
militant opposition from local environmental and human rights activists
who accused it of damaging the environment
and neglecting local
communities.
In June, Shell and the International Finance Corporation proposed a US
$30-million
loan fund to improve job opportunities in the Delta. It
targets mainly contracting firms to Shell that are owned by Niger
Delta
indigenes or which employ people from the area.
NIGERIA:
Sharia court orders amputation of 15-year-old
A group of high-level Nigerian officials discussed issues of peace education and indigenous relations during a recent
visit to the University of Melbourne.
Director-General of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution for the Office of the Presidency, Dr Sunday Ochoche,
led a delegation that included the Director of the Department of Internal Conflict Prevention and Resolution, Mr Udenta O
Udenta, and the Assistant Director Dr Ochinya Ojiji. They discussed peace teaching and programs with the Director of the University
of Melbourne’s International Conflict Resolution Centre, Associate Professor Di Bretherton.
As part of their
visit, the Nigerian officials delivered a lecture on their research into internal conflict resolution in Nigeria, especially
in relation to the contradictions between the notion of citizenship and the more widely accepted concept of Nigerian ‘indigeneship’
– or regional indigenous citizenship.
The party discussed the concept of how citizenship in Nigeria is valued,
and how the deep-rooted traditional beliefs that underlie the idea of ‘indigeneship’ have continued to frustrate
attempts at genuine nation building.
Dr Ochoche said the visit to the University of Melbourne allowed the group to
draw from Australia’s experiences with indigenous rights and citizenship.
Associate Professor Bretherton said
the delegation was interested in learning about developing education and training programs to promote conflict resolution.
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