By Emem Idio, Yenagoa

Search for Common Ground (Search) a non-profit organization in collaboration with Stakeholders Democracy Network, SDN, Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta, PIND and Academic Associates PeaceWorks,AAPW, has organised a capacity building for members of the Bayelsa State Peace Architecture (SPA) on early warning and early response in conflict resolution mechanism.

The programme with the theme: “‘Early Warning, Early Response (EWER)’, sponsored by the European Union, drew participants from the communities, local government councils officials and the state government officials including police and other security agencies.

Speaking at the training workshop, the Capacity building and Training Coordinator on the project, ‘Community Centred Approach to Transforming Criminality and Violence in the Niger Delta’, Dr. Philip Kalio, said the training is aimed at strengthening the state’s peace architecture to effectively address conflict issues brought to them by local and community peace structures.

Kalio, noted that the two-day training focused on improving the knowledge and skills of stakeholders in the state’s security sector to enable them to respond to early warning signs of potential violent conflicts.

He said: “By building their capacity, the programme seeks to empower them to tackle the recurring criminality and violence that have plagued the region, ultimately helping prevent violence before it escalates.

“Peace is a crucial foundation for development, and the training emphasizes the importance of the state-level peace architecture understanding the objectives of the project and how to carry out their responsibilities effectively.

“It highlights the significance of early warning systems in detecting brewing conflicts and addressing them before they spiral into violence. The involvement of key security actors, including the police, state security heads, and government representatives, ensures that the state has the necessary resources and expertise to manage peace effectively.”

On the way forward after the end of the project next year, Dr Kalio said it involved ensuring that the peace architecture, which includes various government departments, becomes self-sustaining, adding that “As the Search for Common Ground project nears its completion, it is vital for the government to take ownership of the initiative and ensure its continuity beyond the project’s timeline, so that peacebuilding efforts continue in the long term.”

Also speaking, the Secretary of the State Peace Architecture (SPA) in Bayelsa and Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Bayelsa State Council, Dr. Inebraton Preye, described the programme as part of a broader effort to promote peace in the Niger Delta region, covering Bayelsa, Delta, and Rivers states.

He said the project is implemented in collaboration with Search for Common Ground, SDI, PIND, and the European Union.
He said the essence of the training was to equip the SPA network — a collection of stakeholders drawn from various categories of leadership from community peace architecture, local government peace architecture.

He said: “The idea behind it is that there is no conflict that does not have a location. So, if you trace it to a location, from that location, the CPA should be able to deal with that. If it is above them, they move it to the LPA and from there to the SPA which superintends as the head. If there is anything above the SPA, we can recommend to the state governor or to the security agencies for their attention and action.

“One thing we have found out overtime is cultism, the relationship between cultism and crime on one part, the relationship between drug and peace building.

“At the SPA level, we are putting our heads together to see how we can put all these things together to form a template and that is what brought us to the need for the creation of Bayelsa Peace Commission to be driven using the NGO lens so that if this project is wrapped up, there is need for us to sustain the legacy of peace as without peace there can be no development.”