The director of the MacArthur Foundation in Nigeria, Kole Shettima, said the lack of a regional approach to tackling insecurity in the Northwest of Nigeria has made the region battle the menace without success.
Shettima said this while speaking on “Mobilizing Stakeholders Towards Peacebuilding In Northwest Nigeria: Strategies, Lessons and Challenges” at the Northwest Regional Conference On Women Peace And Security, organised by Global Rights in Abuja.
According to Shettima, insecurity has remained a challenge in Nigeria because many citizens don’t see it as a national problem.
Read Also:
- Celebrating Kole Shettima and Amina Saliu on their birthdays
- African governments may face lawsuits over maternal deaths during COVID-19 – Rights groups
- Women farmers helpless as COVID-19 deepens poverty in Nasarawa
He said the country must address the drivers of violence in the communities.
He suggested that inefficient utilisation of resources and the need to prioritise security must also be considered.
“We must organise ourselves in terms of regional perspective. As civil society, we are not the government, but we can work together with the government.”
“It’s a very difficult and very touching issue. I think that for those who listen to radio stations in the morning, whether you listen to the Voice of America, the BBC, or Radio France International…you hear about our children, our grandchildren, our mothers, our people physically being carted away and taken out to other countries or other places, other communities,” Shettima stated.
He said the situation should not be viewed as a Northwest problem but rather as a general problem that required joint attention.
“I think that one of the lessons that we have to learn is to avoid the segregation, compartmentalisation and stereotyping by people that this can only happen in this part of the country or the other part of the country, and that it cannot happen to us. Therefore we as a people in this country, we must change this notion that this is a national problem,” Shettima stated.
Shettima said the involvement of civil society was critical in the fight against insecurity in the Northwest.
In her contribution, The Executive Director of Partners West Africa Nigeria (PWAN) Northwest region, Kemi Okenyodo, claimed that over 8,000 people have been killed and 200,000 displaced in the Northwest region.
“Conflict comes with burdens to the people in the community, especially women, exposing them to different forms of sexual assault. Sex for survival has also become a trend in exchange for food for survival and other items due to insecurity,” she stated
Also speaking at the event, the President of the Deaf Women Association of Nigeria, Helen Beyioku Alase, said insecurity also affects people with disabilities.
“We need to play our roles in ensuring deaf people are carried along. Insecurity has affected deaf people so much and caused loss of lives in the deaf community. For instance, in the areas with insecurity, when there are explosions from bombs and people run, deaf people don’t hear. And no one stops to let them know what is happening. This is very sad for us,” She said.
A reporter with the ICIR
A Journalist with a niche for quality and a promoter of good governance