Nigeria must spend more on peace, says IPCR DG

The Director-General of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Dr Joseph Ochogwu, has called for increased investment in peacebuilding.

He warned that the cost of failing to prevent conflicts far exceeds the resources required to sustain peace.

Ochogwu made the call on Thursday in Abuja while delivering a keynote lecture titled, “Investing in Peace: A Collective Responsibility for Everyone,” at the 2026 Peace and Dialogue Awards organised by the Ufuk Dialogue Foundation in collaboration with the IPCR.

He said Nigeria and other countries needed to move away from reacting to conflicts after they had erupted, and commit more resources to prevention, early warning systems, peace education, youth employment, interfaith literacy, justice reform and community mediation.

“To invest in peace is to move from rhetoric to resources, from reaction to prevention,” he said.

According to him, global military expenditure crossed $2.4tn in 2024, while peacebuilding spending remained below $60bn, barely 2.5 per cent of military expenditure.

“We fund the bullet, not the classroom that could have prevented the trigger,” he said.

Ochogwu said West Africa and the Sahel faced a convergence of extremism, unconstitutional transitions, farmer-herder tensions and climate-driven displacement, and called for cross-border early warning systems and joint security-community mechanisms.

He added that Nigeria’s own conflict challenges were layered, extremism in the North-East, banditry in the North-West and North-Central, resource conflicts across the Middle Belt, separatist agitation in the South-East and urban fragility, and required targeted rather than blanket responses.

“A blanket approach will fail,” he warned.

He identified the Federal Government’s economic reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda as an investment in peace, arguing job creation and poverty reduction could reduce vulnerability to conflict.

“Economic renewal is not a separate track; it is the bedrock on which peace is sustained,” he said.

The IPCR DG identified four reasons for Nigeria’s underinvestment in peacebuilding: a perception gap, fragmentation of interventions, funding misalignment, and the absence of effective tracking mechanisms.

He noted that security hardware attracted greater visibility than preventive measures, that donor-driven interventions were poorly aligned with national plans, and that less than 0.5 per cent of MDA budgets was coded for peacebuilding.

On the economic cost of conflict, Ochogwu said violence cost the global economy about $19.1tn in 2024, 13.5 per cent of global GDP, and that every dollar not invested in prevention could cost 20 times more in humanitarian response and reconstruction.

Nigeria, he said, had lost more than $14bn to farmer-herder conflict in five years and over $9bn to infrastructure damage in the North-East, with 2.2 million people displaced.

“The cost of not investing in peace far exceeds the cost of investing in it,” he said.

He proposed a five-point compact involving government, the private sector, faith and traditional leaders, civil society and citizens, urging governments to fast-track the National Peace Policy, establish a National Peace Investment Fund, legislate a minimum three per cent peacebuilding allocation across relevant MDAs, and strengthen the IPCR’s coordination mandate.

He also called on the private sector to commit one per cent of its CSR funds to peacebuilding.

“Peace is an enabler of profit,” he said.

Also speaking, the President of the Ufuk Dialogue Foundation, Emrah Ilgen, said Nigeria’s diversity should be viewed as an advantage rather than a source of division, and that investing in peace meant investing in relationships, creating room for people who disagree to dialogue and focus on common ground.

“For Ufuk Dialogue Foundation, investing in peace means investing in relationships,” he said.

The foundation, in collaboration with the IPCR, presented awards recognising individuals, organisations and communities contributing to peace, reconciliation, humanitarian service, education and youth development.

Chairman of the occasion, Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, represented by AIG Victor Olaiya, stressed the link between peace and democracy.

“Peace and democracy cannot be separated because they are mutually reinforcing,” he said, adding, “Just as security is everyone’s business, peace is also everyone’s business.”

The IGP urged the award recipients to treat the recognition as a renewed call to action rather than an endpoint.

“These awards send a message. They tell every Nigerian that peacebuilding is valuable work. They tell our young people that service to humanity is worthy of recognition,” he said, also urging Nigerian youths to avoid actions that could undermine their future or bring disrepute to their families and the country.