The Emir of Fika, His Royal Highness, Alhaji Mohammadu Abali Ibn Mohammed Idrissa, has called for the strengthening of traditional institutions, insisting that the role of traditional rulers in peace building across the nation cannot be wished away.
Speaking in Abuja at the European Union(EU) and the British Council (BC) funded Managing Conflict in Nigeria (MCN) Programme with the theme: “Practice Dissemination Workshop on Initiatives to Strengthen Traditional Justice System, Impact dissemination and lessons learning event for traditional justice intervention in the North East,” Idrissa, who is also the Chairman of the Yobe State Council of Traditional Rulers, insisted that traditional rulers had a critical role in peace building and resolution.
He said that the duty of peacebuilding and resolution, which was hitherto domiciled with the emirates, had been taken over by the government.
The MCN Programme, which was implemented by the British Council in the states of Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe, trained no fewer than 2,404 traditional rulers and community leaders in dispute resolution between 2017 and 2023.
The programme aimed to improve security and stability in the region, preventing population displacement and forced and irregular migrations.
Idrissa noted that the peaceful community development initiative strategy, which was formulated and funded by the British Council and the European Union, needed to be sustained to ensure lasting peace in the region.
He emphasized that for any development programme to be sustainable, especially in the areas of peace building and effective conflict management, the traditional institutions were critical for the desired success.
The Emir of Bade, Yobe state, HRH Alhaji Abubakar Umar Suleiman, also emphasized that traditional institutions were responsible for resolving conflicts and are the best way of conflict resolution as it had no costs and delays like government institutions.
Meanwhile, the Gangwari Ganye, Adamawa state, HRH Umaru Adamu Sanda, regretted that the greatest victims of conflict were from the northeast affected by activities of Boko Haram.
He urged traditional rulers to understand the basics of conflict resolution to enable them to perform better as rulers.
In his welcome remarks, the National Programme Manager, MCN, Prof. Mohammed Tabiu, explained that the programme focused on managing conflict in the North East had been implemented in the past six years to enhance the capacity of traditional rulers on peace and conflict resolution.
Tabiu revealed that over 2,404 traditional rulers and community leaders in three North East states were trained in dispute resolution between 2017 and 2023. He also disclosed that no fewer than 44,411 different cases ranging from disputes between farmers and herders, business disputes, family and domestic concerns, theft, and others had been resolved using knowledge from the training by traditional rulers and community leaders in the emirates covered by the programme.
Tabiu explained that the MCN Programme sought to enhance the capacity of government, security, community, and civil society institutions and actors to address factors that contribute to the outbreak, intensity, impact, and prolongation of violent conflicts.
He added that the programme was piloted in four Emirates in each of the North East states where the programme was implemented, “as part of its intervention on strengthening community level conflict management mechanisms, the program has worked with the traditional institutions and actors targeting 12 key emirates across the region.”
Tabiu listed the emirates as Adamawa emirate, Mubi emirate, Ganye emirate, Bachama traditional council; Borno emirate, Biu emirate, Dikwa emirate and Gwoza emirate in Borno State; Fika emirate, Damaturu emirate, Bade emirate and Pataskum emirate in Yobe State.
He said that the stakeholders’ capacity was strengthened by alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, Nigerian civil law, human rights, and the interface between formal and non-formal security and safety institutions in its bid to create an interface in the delivery of justice.
Tabiu further said that a total of 1920 participants, including district heads, village heads, ward heads as well as 160 wives and women involved in community safety concerns had been trained by the program.
The programme also supported each emirate to establish a record-keeping center for documenting identified and engaged issues and used data obtained from different levels to plan a response, decision making, and other specific purposes such as addressing sexual and gender-based violence.
Tabiu also added that research by the MCN showed a modest increase in public perception of the effective functioning of the Traditional Justice System (TJS) from 40 percent in 2017 to 45 percent in 2022 and that 336,047 people had benefited from the services of TJS.
He also stated that through the knowledge gained from the programme, one of the beneficiaries of Fika Emirate, testified that his emirate was able to address a dispute that had lingered for over 60 years.
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