By Mohammed Mohammed
The Civil Society Legislative and Advocacy Centre (CISLAC/Transparency International (TI)-Nigeria with support from Open Society Foundation Africa (OSF-Africa) on Wednesday concluded a two-day capacity building workshop for 40 Community Observers, Journalists and Response Network on Early Warning and Early Response geared at resolving the escalating insecurity and conflicts especially in Kaduna State and other parts of the country.
The 2-day workshop was graced by the Kaduna State Governor, Mr. Uba Sanni, who was represented by the Commissioner/Administrator of Kaduna Capital Territory Authority, Mr. Samuel Aruwan, Executive Vice Chairman, Kaduna State Peace Commission, Dr. Saleh Momale.
Messrs. Sunday Adejoh, Anya Okeke and Bonnet Emmanuel made presentations, titled: Guidance and Good Practices towards Effective Response to Early Warning Signals, Building Resilience in Communities through Effective Early Warning Systems and the Role of the Media in Building Effective Early Warning and Early Response Mechanisms for Communities.
The workshop, revealed that it has become imperative that as conflict fragility spreads rapidly across Nigeria, the criticality of multi-dimensional approach to internal security giving cognisance to community participation and coordinated response must be put in place.
Therefore, early warning is key in the provision of effective and timely information through conflict signal identification, outbreak anticipation and impact mitigation to aid proactive response by relevant authorities.
However, it recognizes the fact that inactive legislative constituency offices across the country as a primary mechanism in early signal detection and reporting contributes to major policy neglect in reporting system and structure.
The discussants noted that: “Lack of transparency and accountability coupled with unattended mismanagementidentified in the implementation of security votes at state levels has paved way for embezzlement that manifests in escalated conflict and threats to lives and property in various parts of the country.
“Continued diversion of the allocated resources for enhancing Defence and Security services towards Early detection of signals, hampers efficient control of violence extremism and coordinated Response at all levels.
“The unattended policy response to root causes of conflict and ethnic profiling of issues has resulted in unwarranted complications and generational agitations that amplify avertable conflict across the country.
“Factual misrepresentation, sensationalised reportage and unverified information presentation by various media outfits trigger conflict insensitivity and violent response.
“Inadequate funding for response institutions backed by political interest and interference hampers early response to reported signals by community observers.
“Lingering inter-agency rivalry among security agencies constitutes an impediment to information sharing for coordinated response.
“Inadequate human and financial resources for Kaduna State peace commission hampers its operational efficiency and activities towards extensive public sensitisation, community engagement in early warning and early Response.”
The Executive Director of CISLAC/TI-Nigeria, Mr. Auwal Ibrahim Rafsanjani, Mr. Emmanuel Shall, Mercy Corps and Mr. Sunday Adamu Global Peace Development, appended their signatures to the underlisted RECOMMENDATIONS:
1.Strengthening legislative constituency offices across the country as a mechanism to enhance coordinated feedback and information gathering on early warning signals for timely and targeted response.
2.Embracing well-informed information gathering, factual presentation and publication as well as high-level professionalism in early warning reporting for timely response and purposeful development.
3. Encouraging transparency and accountability in the implementation of Defence and Security funds; and adequate funding for Kaduna State Peace Commission for efficient service delivery that positively impacts intelligence gathering on early warning signals and well-coordinated response and several others.
