The Director General of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Dr. Joseph Ochogwu, has said Nigeria’s draft National Peace Policy (NPP) is indispensable for tackling the country’s security challenges and building sustainable peace. Dr.

Ochogwu stated this yesterday in Abuja while delivering the welcome address at the second High-Level Experts Dialogue on the draft policy, convened by IPCR in collaboration with the Office of Strategy, Preparedness and Resilience (OSPRE) and Triple Peace Africa. He described the large turnout from government, civil society and other sectors as evidence of the collective recognition that peace in Nigeria is a foundational imperative. According to him, Nigeria stands at a defining crossroads, citing insurgency in the northeast, farmer-herder clashes in the north central, separatist tensions in the southeast, banditry and kidnapping in the northwest, and the proliferation of small arms nationwide.

The DG explained that the draft policy, developed after years of consultations across the six geopolitical zones, provides a framework to coordinate peace-building efforts across government tiers and align state and non-state actors. He listed four key reasons why the policy is essential: eliminating duplication and rivalry among agencies; providing legal legitimacy for an integrated peace-building ecosystem; enabling evidence-based policymaking with measurable outcomes and early warning systems; and signalling Nigeria’s commitment to peace as a development imperative in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

He stressed that fragmented interventions rarely produce durable peace, adding that the policy would mainstream peace-building across sectors such as security, justice, education, health, economic development and governance. The framework, he noted, aligns with the UN Sustaining Peace Agenda, the AU’s Agenda 2063, and the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework. “Dialogue without implementation is mere eloquence,” Dr.

Ochogwu cautioned, describing the second dialogue as a milestone towards sharpening the draft, defining institutional roles, proposing sustainable financing, and building political will for adoption. He urged participants to see themselves as co-architects of Nigeria’s peace. He added that Nigeria has survived as a nation because its people have repeatedly chosen unity over division, adding that the National Peace Policy is an institutional expression of that choice.

“The time for a unified, integrated, and credible National Peace Policy is not tomorrow, it is now,” he said. The dialogue is expected to produce concrete recommendations to fast-track the review and eventual adoption of the policy.