There are eight years until the much-discussed UN Sustainable Development Goals of promoting peace and prosperity for people and the earth are met, but the fundamental question is whether we have enough time. Some would argue that Nigeria’s youth are our best hope and best chance.
Community peace builder, social change facilitator, and founder of Mind Reformers Network, Victor Okechukwu speaking in the area of peace building among young Nigerians says young persons are ready to come to the table and provide solutions, and same goes for the area of peace and security.
According to him, it’s basically about getting the youths informed on how to understand and manage conflict.
Master Okechukwu stated conflict is natural in as much as we have a diverse environment, but it is being managed is what is important.
“It’s about engaging them in talks, We’ve been to schools, IDP camps. I’ve led my team to camps in Bakassi, that are in five to six states. Trainings have been held as well for young persons” .
He added that young persons need to understand that peace is important because if you don’t get young people to understand why peace is important, they are going to be used as instruments of violence.
“So when you get young persons to understand those pieces and get interested in peace building, you are making them unavailable to be used as instrumental violence, and we must also realise that violence and war is business for some persons, but they can’t do it themselves. They will use young people. So when we get young persons unavailable to be used for those acts, we are building sustainable peace.
Speaking on how engaged the youths are, Master Okechukwu said unfortunately, unemployment have increased, indices have increased in that light. But of course we must know that the world is experiencing global crisis.
“All over the world we are having issues and apart from getting the government to do their parts, we are also getting the people to also do their parts, getting the private organisations to do their part, getting the churches and the monks and all other religious centers to do their part.
“Instead of dwelling in the blame game, how can we make ourselves productive? we’ve gone to places where we’ve seen young persons who are not well engaged in schools but they are good in artwork and hand work.
“How can we engage them? the government will spot everything, they are not spotting everything. We might not be so comfortable with the amount of things they’ve done but if we don’t rise up and engage ourselves and then we expose our community to violence would be the bronze way,” he said.
