The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has recommended diverse peacebuilding strategies to address the ongoing unrest in Nigeria.
In a new report by CDD titled “Multiple Nodes, Common Cause: National Stocktake of Contemporary Insecurity and State Responses in Nigeria,” it noted that at least 60 thousand people have been killed in Nigeria’s 18 northern states in the last 10 years due to insecurity.
To address the prevailing situation, CDD said local, and national stakeholders would need to be willing to try new approaches to curtailing insecurity, stressing that the kinetic approaches favoured by the federal government may remain a mirage.
“Peacebuilding interventions are urgently needed in most if not all geopolitical zones to improve community cohesion in conflict-affected areas,” the report stated.
The group also called for further research to strengthen understanding of the situation in the country, noting that arms flow throughout Nigeria remains imprecise and would benefit from more refined, local-level analysis and mapping of sources, destinations, and routes.
“Similarly, the relationship between narcotics production, consumption, and trafficking on the one hand and insecurity on the other remains largely subject to speculation.
“While militants are known to consume drugs (bandits, for example, consume notable quantities of Indian hemp and tramadol) it is worth interrogating whether production centres have also emerged within the country and whether bandits or other militants profit off the trans-shipment of narcotics through the country.”