PEACE CLUB FESTIVAL FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN JOS NORTH LGA: A MUST SUPPORT EVENT BY ALL AND SUNDRY

TIC Chairman Jos North LGA, Hon. Samuel Dala Umaru receiving LEPRT publications from Mrs. Ikwuta of LEPRT while Mr. Mafeng also LEPRT is seen on your right eated

Recently the Local Emergency Preparedness and Response Team (LEPRT) operating in Jos North Local Government Area (LGA), Plateau state, North Central Nigeria, paid a familiarization and advocacy visit to the Chairman, Transition Implementation Committee (TIC) Jos North LGA, Hon. Samuel Dala Umaru, in his office at the Local Government Council Secretariat, located in the heart of the city of Jos. Hon. Samuel Dala Umaru was appointed into office recently by the Governor of Plateau state, Bar Caleb Mutfwang.

Top in the agenda of the Team during the visit, was a proposed Peace Club Festival, to be organized and hosted for the school-based Peace Clubs facilitated by the LEPRT in Jos North LGA. The Team used the opportunity to seek permission and approval of the Chairman for the programme to be hosted in his domain, and to ask for his support and collaboration.

Many adults can comfortably and conveniently discuss and talk about other forms of festivals, but know next to nothing about the concept of peace festival. They wonder within themselves what it is. If they don’t know it, how can they discuss about it? If they can’t discuss it and do not value it, they may not see the need or support their wards to participate in peace clubs. The society (Jos North LGA) will be worst for it.

The proposed Peace Club Festival is one of the tools the LEPRT is deploying towards achieving sustainable peace in Jos North LGA. It is fundamentally, a call to action, designed to bring children of school age and their teachers together from different schools in the LGA, male and female of different religions, background and race that the Group is grooming under her tutelage to become like-minded individuals and as a matter of fact Peace Building and Disaster Risk Reduction advocates; serving also as tools for Political/Voter Education, and emergency responders in their respective schools, families and communities. 

 

Essentially the Peace Club Festival provides opportunity for awareness creation by the children about their existence and role, activities and successes, challenges they face individually and collectively in their committed efforts to contribute their quota to Peace building efforts in the LGA and to attract attention and support of others to the course of peace building. It is a catch them young programme for the school-based Peace Club members to sensitize their peers that war, crisis, violence, use of weapons, application of harmful tools to inflict or cause injury, wanton destruction of lives and property, are no solution to any conflict situation: disagreement, quarrel etc.

The structure of the LEPRT is a bold statement about her preparedness and readiness to impact the society meaningfully. Membership of the Group is comprised of people representing the following organizations:

“The National Orientation Agency, Nigerian Red Cross Society, Christian Association of Nigeria, Jama’atu Nasril Islam, National Council of Muslim Youth Organizations, Country Women’s Association of Nigeria, Centre for Peace Advancement in Nigeria, Social Welfare Department, Jos North LGA and Federation of Muslim Women of Nigeria”.

The above structure is a clear indication that the Group is effectively positioned and functionally able to deliver to the Jos North LGA a living environment where there is societal friendship and harmony: absence of war, crisis, hostility, and violence; where there is freedom from fear of violence and freedom from provoked and unprovoked attacks and other forms of crime, kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery and others.

The structure is also indicative of the fact that LEPRT is working for a society where Manmade disasters are drastically reduced, and challenges of natural disaster victims are effectively managed, where members of the society become more politically aware and those of voting age understand and play their roles commendably before, during and after elections; settling down immediately as active citizens, aware that democracy is a joint ticket held by the masses, the elected and their appointees.

The foregoing is more productive and sustainable and the result increasingly more rewarding and impactful if the masses understand that representative democracy is a flop if the support: participatory democracy is weak, even if it is slightly so. In view of this it is vital to note, Representative democracy is the role of the elected and their appointees, and Participatory democracy is provided by the electorate. Both must play their part actively for democracy to succeed.

What is now left, but required urgently is for the well-meaning institutions, members of the public, individuals and Groups to rise in unison and support activities of the Group. Support in this regard includes sponsorship, collaborations and partnerships.

By Nnabugwu Chizoba