By Esther Onyegbula

The President of the Society for Peace Studies and Practice (SPSP), Mr. Nathaniel Msen Awuapila, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to strengthen collaborative, nationwide efforts to confront Nigeria’s worsening insecurity, insisting that peacebuilding must become a central pillar of governance and national development.

Awuapila made the call on Tuesday at the opening of the 19th International Annual Conference and General Assembly of SPSP, held at the Abiola Ajimobi Resource Centre, University of Ibadan. He warned that insecurity had grown into a “heavy national burden” threatening economic stability, social cohesion, and national survival.

He said the Federal Government must move beyond the All-of-Government approach to an All-of-Nation model that brings peace professionals, security institutions, communities, scholars, and grassroots actors into a unified front.

“We are appealing to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to work closely with peace professionals, researchers, and grassroots actors to help solve the insecurity confronting our nation,” he said. “Our youths are becoming disillusioned; communities are losing trust; the economy is struggling under the weight of insecurity. These realities demand collective action.”

Awuapila expressed concern that Nigeria, 65 years after independence, still lacked a national peace policy framework, describing the absence as “troubling” and a major hindrance to coordinated and sustainable peacebuilding.

“A national peace policy was drafted more than 15 years ago, but it has remained only a draft. Without a guiding framework that reflects our current realities, peacebuilding becomes slow, fragmented, and reactive,” he said.

He therefore called for the urgent formulation and adoption of a national peace framework that would align institutions and communities toward a shared peace agenda.

Highlighting SPSP’s work in research, dialogue facilitation, community engagement, policy support, and field interventions over the past 19 years, the SPSP president said the organisation remained ready to support the government in designing and implementing sustainable security strategies.

The four-day conference, themed “Economic Challenges and the Tasks of Building Sustainable Peace in a Globalised World,” drew prominent figures in the security, governance, academic, and humanitarian sectors.

Dignitaries in attendance included former Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa (rtd.), who delivered the keynote address; Chief Adebisi Akande, Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, University of Ibadan; Dr. Abiodun Essiet, Special Adviser to the President on Community Engagement; Prof. Kayode Adebowale, Vice Chancellor and Chief Host; Prof. Isaac Olawale Albert, Conference Host and SPSP founder; Prof. Elias Sulaiman Bogoro, Chairman of the Board of Trustees; Kemi Nanna Nandap, Comptroller General, Nigeria Immigration Service; Hon. Aondowase Kunde, Benue State Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management; and Rt. Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin, Speaker, Oyo State House of Assembly.

A major highlight of the event was the induction of 40 new Fellows of SPSP drawn from security institutions, academia, government, and humanitarian sectors, an investiture that underscored the Society’s expanding role in shaping Nigeria’s peace and development agenda.

Speakers at the conference examined the link between Nigeria’s economic challenges and its rising insecurity, cautioning that the country’s development aspirations may remain elusive without firm, strategic, and well-coordinated peace interventions.