The Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) has alleged that some retired public servants and other associated factors were responsible for some perennial communal conflicts across Nigeria.
IPCR Director-General, Dr Bakut Bakut, who disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday while delivering a speech at a stakeholders meeting, said that the claim was based on the findings of the institute.
The meeting was organised by the institute with a view to mainstreaming peace in the workplace.
Bakut noted that the workplace peace initiative was informed by the need to minimise the increasing cases of labour-related conflicts which negatively impact workers’ productivity, morale and the nation’s economic development.
“Sadly, a thorough observation of the list of conflict stakeholders across Nigeria has revealed that a sizeable number of our retired civil personnel are the forces behind some difficult and perennial conflicts in communities across Nigeria.
“Our country is burdened by debilitating issues of conflicts in the six geo-political zones, ranging from herders-farmers conflicts to ethno-religious violence and terrorism, which have led to the death of very resourceful Nigerians.
“It has also been observed that most sectors of our national life, including the work communities (public and private) are suffering from one form of conflict or the other caused by sharp decline in the culture of peace in our communities and organisations,’’ Bakut said.
Bakut stressed that lack of peaceful work relationship between government and trade unions, and among professional trade unions, had resulted in consistent frictions, with attendant monumental loss of revenue, brain drain, capital flight, among others.
The director-general also observed that intra and inter-professional trade union wrangling had become pronounced in the health sector, culminating in unending disagreements among the trade unions, managements of institutions and individual workers.
Bakut further said that most of the industrial conflicts that led to colossal economic waste in Nigeria started as minor workplace conflicts, owing largely to the fact that their regulatory documents did not formally mainstream peace into their operations.
“As a result, development programmes, such as infrastructural designs and constructions, city and road expansion, relocation and resettlement programmes and the likes, rather instigated more conflicts than they would have naturally happened,’’ Bakut added.
He said that all the above challenges necessitated the urgent need to galvanise Nigeria’s workplaces, as well as the nation’s future societies into a cohesive and peaceful state devoid of violence.
Towards achieving these aims and objectives, Bakut announced that IPCR was at the verge of developing a “Peace-Desk’’ policy content that would enable her to establish same in various agencies across the country.
He explained that the main objectives of the “Peace-Desk policy would be to rebuild the culture of peace, cement the relationship between trade unions and managements and the restoration of cohesion back to working communities. (NAN)
