NLC wants conflict resolution mechanism to tackle killings 

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has urged the Federal Government to set up conflict resolution mechanisms to resolve frequent clashes of conflicting interests. 

Speaking at a roundtable discussion on understanding and resolving the herders-farmers’ violent conflicts in Nigeria, President of NLC, Ayuba Wabba, who was represented by the Deputy General Secretary, Chris Uyot, said the security agencies must ensure that individuals are checkmated to mitigate the use of illicit weapons during misunderstandings. 

On his part, the Country Director of Nigeria-Plan International, Dr. Hassanni Abdul, said: “There are two dimensions to what the government can doo.

The first is the immediate reaction of stopping the violence, which requires effective polices, simultaneous level of community engagement, rebuilding community level conflict management mechanism and stopping the killing. And secondly is to find out a long-term sustainable solutions to solve the problem by involving different sectors.

“To encourage the process that will discourage movement of herdsmen, some people have advocated ranching, grazing reserve among others. To ensure that policy design involves quality process so that people can be part and own these policies, that laws are not just dropped on the people because it is a continuous process, and solve problems as they emerge within the set up of short-term and long-term mechanism.”

The Director, Practice Centre, Dr. Ene Ede, who was represented by Jaye Gaskiya, said governments at the federal, state, and council must understand that Nigerians face common challenges, and should act together to address political issues. 

He said finding solutions must include true leadership and exploring economy solutions. 

“All these issues are about livelihood because people are basically at the base of these conflicts, and we must institute a land and natural resource management process that enables every stakeholder that depends on land to earn a living and put economic incentive in place because if we are saying we want cattle rearing to become a commercial and viable business, then it must be done in a way that is less damaging to the environment,” he argued.

He further noted that if people take laws into their hands, they must also be dealt with, saying; “we must find a way of tracking criminals and separating criminals from genuine persons, and dealing with criminals as criminals and not criminalising an entire livelihood and systems, and this requires political leadership.”