By Taibat Ummi Yakubu

The Federal Government is considering a national peace framework to tackle Nigeria’s worsening insecurity, as the head of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Dr Joseph Ochogwu, warns that military operations alone cannot end the country’s persistent violence.

Ochogwu disclosed this in Abuja at a conference on peace and conflict resolution organised by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation-West Africa, where he called for a shift from reactive security operations to preventive measures that address the underlying causes of insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and communal clashes.

Speaking under the theme, “Peace and Conflict Resolution in Nigeria: Rethinking Strategies for Sustainable Peace,” the IPCR director-general argued that the country’s security challenges would remain difficult to contain unless the government confronted governance failures, economic inequality, unresolved communal disputes and weaknesses in public institutions.

He said Nigeria’s crisis went beyond the capacity of the military and police, pointing to the country’s political structure, unequal distribution of economic opportunities, management of ethnic and social diversity, and the ability of institutions to resolve disputes peacefully.

According to him, the concentration of political and fiscal powers at the federal level, disputes over citizenship and belonging, uneven development and institutional failures have created conditions that continue to undermine peace.

Ochogwu warned that poverty, unemployment, rising living costs, poor infrastructure and inadequate public services could deepen public frustration and intensify competition over limited resources. He said these problems become even more dangerous when combined with exclusion, impunity and organised criminal activities.

He also identified failures in policing, the justice system, land administration and public accountability as factors that could push communities towards self-help arrangements and armed groups, further weakening confidence in government institutions.

The IPCR chief explained that seemingly local disputes could escalate into wider security emergencies when historical grievances, ethnic tensions, land disagreements and economic frustrations are exploited for political or criminal purposes.

He added that the spread of small arms and light weapons, criminal financing networks, misinformation, climate change and environmental degradation were making the situation more complicated.

Beyond the loss of lives and the displacement of residents, Ochogwu said insecurity was damaging food security, economic productivity, investment, democratic participation and public confidence in the state.

To illustrate the scale of the challenge, he cited figures attributed to the European Union Agency for Asylum and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, which reportedly recorded 282 security incidents and 737 deaths in Plateau State between January 2024 and August 2025.

He cautioned against interpreting the violence solely through ethnic or religious differences, arguing that disputes over land, local power struggles, historical grievances, criminality, impunity and declining trust in security agencies could combine to sustain cycles of attacks and retaliation.

Although he acknowledged that military operations remained necessary to confront armed groups, Ochogwu maintained that lasting peace would require the restoration of public services, rebuilding of livelihoods, support for displaced communities and stronger local administration.

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State policing, local government autonomy under spotlight

The IPCR director-general also linked sustainable peace to governance reforms, including state policing, greater local government autonomy and decentralisation of the electricity sector.

He said state policing could improve intelligence gathering, strengthen officers’ understanding of local communities and reduce response times during emergencies.

However, he warned that the arrangement could also expose citizens to political interference, human rights violations and disparities in institutional capacity if adequate safeguards were not established.

On local government autonomy, Ochogwu said the financial independence of Nigeria’s 774 local government areas could improve grassroots governance, provided it was backed by transparent spending, credible elections, administrative competence and public participation.

He stressed that releasing funds to local councils would not automatically translate into better governance unless the money was used to provide essential services, including healthcare, education and infrastructure.

He further called for stronger conflict research and early-warning systems, insisting that information about emerging threats must lead to timely intervention by the relevant authorities.

“Early warning without early response risks frustrating communities that report threats but see no meaningful intervention,” he said.

Ochogwu added that the IPCR would continue strengthening the National Conflict Early Warning and Early Response System while expanding policy research, dialogue, mediation and reconciliation efforts aimed at preventing disputes from escalating into violence.

Earlier, Angela Odah, a representative of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation-West Africa, described how worsening insecurity had made routine activities, including road travel and the transportation of agricultural produce, increasingly dangerous.

Odah said kidnappers, bandits and criminal gangs had left communities across the country vulnerable, while repeated attacks had forced many rural residents in northern Nigeria to spend years in internally displaced persons’ camps.