The Foundation for Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta had called on stakeholders in the Niger Delta of Ondo State to put in place machinery to arrest youth restiveness and promote peace in the area.
In achieving this, the organisation said it had embarked upon massive youth empowerment programmes in a bid to engage the youth and achieve regional peace..
The facilitator of the PIND, Mrs Stella Ikeokwu, spoke at a Niger Delta peace and security network meeting held at Sunview Hotel, Alagbaka, Akure on Monday.
She identified land issues, water boundary clashes, and inter-cult clashes as some of the causes of youth reactiveness in the Niger Delta region of the country.
She said this had led the government and other concerned organisations to focus attention on promoting peace, improving security, and supporting economic development in the region.
She said, “It is cheaper to prevent conflict than to manage it. Therefore, we have engaged people from religious bodies, traditional rulers, civil society organisations, and the media to form a synergy and bring up strategies that would help in preventing conflicts from arising.”
“In riverine areas of Ilaje/Ese-Odo, there have been reports of inter-cult clashes that led to the loss of lives sometimes over trivial matters. We were able to wade into the matter through the help of uniform servicemen.
“We have also engaged youths in learning alternative means of livelihood apart from the one they are accustomed to. We have had ex-militants and former members of cult groups denounce their membership of such groups. And we are now using them to reach out to other youths in the Niger Delta states,” she added.
In his remarks, the National Coordinator of another group, the Partners for Peace in the Niger Delta, Chief Pius Akomolafe, explained that the foundation was responsible for maintaining peace in the Niger Delta states.
According to him, the meeting was to institutionalise a structure coordinating peace and security mechanisms in the state to mitigate conflicts in the Niger Delta region.
