Citizen Agency Through Community Dialogue: Mirroring Southern Nigeria

One important foundation for sustainable peace is how the agency of community security is constituted. Generally, the citizen is the most reliable agency for this purpose. In societies that have experienced conflict, the end is usually not the conference tables of peace deals by state forces. Rather it is the dialogue context of ordinary people in which they frame how to live together in mutual respect and tolerance of one another. Community dialogue is central to any search for sustainable peace. Indeed, dialogue on community security helps people build on the resources they already have to address security concerns. Communities generally work better with processes, persons and ideas they are already familiar with. In that connection, dialogues are expected to be based on a sense of commonality with others, sincere deliberations and empathy.

Nigeria’s recent history of violent conflicts across the six geopolitical zones has continued to be addressed with a largely kinetic state-centric approach to peace and security. More often than not, this approach creates new problems and further unsettles the country\’s fragile peace. 

In this edition of the Nextier SPD Policy Weekly, we focus on the need for a horizontal dialogue among the major groups of southern Nigeria as a prelude to an expansion with the northern groups, where the fears of the citizens, needs and chances for lasting peace would be explored.

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