Dialogue key to tackling insecurity in North-Central — Presidency

The Presidency has said that nearly 70 percent of security challenges in Nigeria’s North-Central region can be resolved through dialogue, reconciliation, and community engagement rather than force.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Community Engagement (North-Central), Dr. Abiodun Essiet, disclosed this on Tuesday during a capacity-building training for stakeholders at the State House, Abuja.

“From our analysis, almost 70 percent of the security challenges in the North-Central can be addressed through dialogue, reconciliation, intelligence sharing, and community engagement rather than through force alone,” Essiet said.

She recalled the launch of the Presidential Community Engagement Peace Initiative (PCEPI) in Jos, Plateau State, on June 5, 2025, describing it as a landmark step towards fostering unity, strengthening cohesion, and empowering communities to take ownership of their peace processes.

Essiet also announced that her office is partnering with the International Communities Organisation (ICO) on a project tagged Promoting Community Peace and Strengthening Social Cohesion in North-Central Nigeria, in line with Nigeria’s adoption of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) recommendations.

At the core of the initiative, she explained, is the creation of a grassroots peace structure across all 110 local governments in the region. The structure will focus on intelligence gathering, continuous dialogue, and identifying root causes of conflict to strengthen early dispute resolution.

“Once we succeed in resolving internal communal conflicts and addressing the root causes of tension, we will already be halfway to overcoming insecurity in the North-Central,” she noted, adding that security agencies will continue to handle armed criminality.

The training featured sessions on peacebuilding, conflict resolution, conflict dynamics, community engagement, and intelligence gathering, alongside state-level SWOT analysis sessions to map risks and stakeholders.

Stakeholders at the event identified forests and porous borders as critical security pressure points.

The Commandant-General of the Nigerian Forest Security Service (NFSS), Ambassador Joshua Osatimehin Wole, said Nigeria has 1,129 forest reserves, including 174 in the North-Central, which require tighter surveillance and inter-agency cooperation.

“For sustainable peace in our communities, all our forested regions must be well coordinated and preserved,” Wole said, noting that Niger, Kwara, and Benue States—bordering international frontiers—are epicentres of insecurity.

He also linked some of the region’s challenges to the post-Gaddafi era, when mercenaries spread across the Sahel following the fall of the Libyan leader.

Also speaking, the Director of the MacArthur Foundation, Kole Shettima, stressed the link between peace and development.

“Unless there is peace, you cannot do what you want to do; peace is essential and paramount,” he said, while urging the National Assembly to strengthen traditional institutions, which he described as historically effective in conflict resolution.