IFIT trains Benue traditional rulers on community grievance management

From Scholastica Onyeka Makurdi

Addressing participants at the opening ceremony of the workshop, on Tuesday, in Makurdi, IFIT Coordinator in Nigeria, Mr Thomas Bimba Junior, said the training was aimed at identifying, strengthening, institutionalizing and adapting best practices in grievance management at the community level.

He said that IFIT was working in Nigeria through Middle Belt Brain Trust, (MBBT), chaired by a Nigerian former Chief of Army and Defense Staff, General Martin Luther Agwai (rtd), adding that the MBBT project was being implemented in five states including Benue, Taraba, Nasawara, Kaduna, and Plateau with the aim of fostering peace, beginning from the community level.

Bimba further explained that it was in order to make justice accessible to disadvantaged groups at the community level that the Middle Belt Brain Trust was building the capacity of traditional rulers in alternative dispute resolution methods.

While stating that all conflicts were interrelated and IFIT could not handle Benue conflict in isolation from what was happening in Nasarawa, Taraba, Plateau and Kaduna states, the coordinator said the initiative had to start at the community level in Benue with the Chiefs as major key players before it would be extended to other states successfully.

He asserted that already, community and traditional leaders constituted a formidable structure that needed to be strengthened to achieve peace hence there was need to create new structures, revealing that the existing institutions have failed to manage grievances effectively.

“The failure of existing institutions to effectively manage grievances constitutes a major source of conflict in our communities as most community level conflicts that start out as civil disputes and are not solved, escalate violence and identity conflict.

“This is mainly due to the fact that justice system is overstretched and that there is a perceived bias of both the law- making and law- enforcement bodies.

“The low compliance rates of court judgements, or the high rate of enforcement actions, showcase the need for systems that maximize the likelihood of voluntary compliance as well as having supportive cultural norms that emphasize the importance of reconciliation and relationships over ‘winning in dispute resolution’, Bimba said.

According to him, IFIT had earlier organized a similar training workshop for first class chiefs in Benue State last year (2022) saying this time, it was the turn of second class chiefs in the state and 21 of them participated in the workshop.

Speaking, a member of MBBT and former Executive Secretary, Human Rights Commission, Abuja, Prof. Bem Angwe, stressed the need for the international community to protect people during conflicts that overwhelm what he called their “city of residence”.

Angwe said the Middle Belt region which connects the North and the South was the most affected by crisis in Nigeria and there was need for traditional rulers, who are the first port of call when reporting grievances and disputes, to let the international community know what the causes of the crises are.

Also, a former Vice Chancellor of the Benue State University (BSU), Makurdi, Prof. Charity Angya, also a member the MBBT, commended traditional rulers for registering the identity of their communities on the map and for strengthening their collaboration towards conflict resolution in their various chiefdoms.

The training featured group work on several aspects of conflict management including Community Mapping Exercise, Conflict Analysis, Presentation of Analysis and Feedback, Community Early Warning and Early Response Systems as well as group Presentation on Early Warning and Early Response Systems.