NAN-F-62Law
By Maureen Okon
Abuja, Jan. 4, 2017 (NAN) Prof. Oshita Oshita, the Director General, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), on Wednesday in Abuja, said the institution would seek legal backing to guarantee the success of its peace initiatives.
Oshita made this remark in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.
According to him, the institute will also be partnering with new stakeholders and the National Assembly in its drive of the peace message.
“For 2017, the IPCR will engage more seriously with the National Assembly, so that we will have issues of peace backed by law; for example, we need to have a national peace forum.
He said that given that there had been recurrent violent conflicts across the country, there is the need to put in place a plan to avert conflicts.
“Nigerians cannot continue to be taken by surprise; that is what we are hoping for in 2017 and the national peace policy would become the national peace act,’’ he said.
The professor said the issue of peace demanded some urgency, adding that there had been efforts to strengthen the response capacity of the institute through a bill of the National Assembly.
He said stakeholders were expecting to see the institute evolve into a commission, so that it would have both a research angle and an operational capacity to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy.
“We need a structure that enables the institute to work without limitation or constraint,’’ he explained. (NAN)
ETIM/AO/YEMI