By Esther Onyegbula

The CLEEN Foundation on Monday joined the global community to commemorate the 2025 International Day of Peace, calling on Nigerians to embrace grassroots-driven solutions to tackle the country’s worsening insecurity, political tension, and ethnic divisions.

With the global theme “Act Now for a Peaceful World”, adapted locally as “Community First: Local Solutions for a Peaceful Nigeria”, the organisation emphasised that lasting peace can only be built when communities are empowered to resolve conflict, strengthen dialogue, and promote inclusivity.

Speaking during a webinar to mark the occasion, Acting Executive Director of CLEEN Foundation, Mr. Peter Maduoma, warned that peace should not be viewed as an abstract ideal but as a daily responsibility that must be anchored in justice and trust.

“Across the country, community leaders, women’s groups, youth networks and civil society actors continue to show that lasting peace begins at the local level,” Maduoma said, adding that the organisation has expanded early warning and response networks in violence-prone states.

According to him, communities remain the epicentre of insecurity, with banditry, terrorism, and communal clashes eroding traditional peace structures. He warned that the collapse of peace in rural areas has forced mass migration into cities, worsening urban poverty and crime.

“It used to be that people retired to their villages for rest and safety, but that is no longer the case because communities have become unsafe,” Maduoma said, stressing the need to “take peace back to the grassroots” to address food insecurity, migration pressures, and social tensions.

Over the past year, CLEEN said it had trained community peace monitors, facilitated dialogues between security agencies, traditional rulers and youth leaders, and promoted women’s participation in peacebuilding. The Foundation also revealed it has invested in research on criminal justice administration, which it identified as a recurring source of threats to peace in Nigeria.

Panelists at the webinar also stressed the need for inclusive governance and locally grounded solutions. Women’s rights advocate, Brenda Anugwom, said peace for women means freedom from intimidation, torture, and inequality, arguing that inclusive governance and stronger institutions are central to building resilience.

“Women are more accountable, and when you empower a woman, you empower an entire community,” Anugwom said, urging government to strengthen traditional and religious institutions as platforms for dialogue and conflict resolution.

Similarly, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Community Engagement (North Central), Abiodun Essiet, said insecurity in the region has been worsened by ethnic exclusion and weak cohesion. She announced that a Presidential Community Engagement Peace Initiative would soon be launched across 121 local governments in the North Central zone to institutionalise peace structures at grassroots level.

CLEEN Foundation further called on government to prioritise inclusive dialogue, provide access to justice, and adopt community-based policing standards, while urging citizens to reject hate speech, misinformation, and violence.

“Peace is everyone’s responsibility,” the Foundation noted, stressing that collective action at both community and national levels is vital to building a more secure and just Nigeria.