The Director-General of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Dr Joseph Ochogwu, has called for increased investment in peacebuilding, warning that Nigeria is spending far more dealing with conflicts than it would cost to prevent them.
Ochogwu said Nigeria had lost more than $14bn to farmer-herder conflicts in five years, while infrastructure damage in the North-East had exceeded $9bn, with about 2.2 million people displaced.
He 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.
The IPCR boss urged governments and stakeholders to shift from reacting to violence after it erupts to investing in conflict 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.
Ochogwu noted that global military expenditure surpassed $2.4tn in 2024, while spending on peacebuilding remained below $60bn, representing only about 2.5 per cent of military expenditure.
“We fund the bullet, not the classroom that could have prevented the trigger,” he said.
He said West Africa and the Sahel were facing a dangerous combination of extremism, unconstitutional changes of government, farmer-herder tensions and climate-induced displacement.
According to him, the situation requires stronger cross-border early warning systems and joint security and community-based mechanisms.
Ochogwu said Nigeria’s security challenges were diverse, ranging from terrorism in the North-East and banditry in the North-West and North-Central to resource conflicts in the Middle Belt, separatist agitation in the South-East and growing urban vulnerabilities.
“A blanket approach will fail,” he warned.
He argued that economic reforms aimed at creating jobs and reducing poverty were also important investments in peace, stressing that economic hardship could increase people’s vulnerability to conflict and criminality.
“Economic renewal is not a separate track; it is the bedrock on which peace is sustained,” he said.
The IPCR DG identified four major reasons for Nigeria’s poor investment in peacebuilding: inadequate understanding of its importance, fragmented interventions, poor alignment of funding and weak tracking mechanisms.
He said preventive measures often received less attention than security hardware, while donor-funded interventions were sometimes poorly aligned with national priorities.
Ochogwu also disclosed that less than 0.5 per cent of the budgets of Ministries, Departments and Agencies was coded specifically for peacebuilding.
Conflict costs Nigeria, world trillions
The IPCR boss said violence cost the global economy about $19.1tn in 2024, equivalent to 13.5 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product.
He added that every dollar not invested in conflict prevention could eventually cost as much as 20 times more in humanitarian assistance and reconstruction.
“The cost of not investing in peace far exceeds the cost of investing in it,” he said.
To reverse the trend, Ochogwu proposed a five-point peacebuilding compact involving government, the private sector, faith and traditional leaders, civil society organisations and ordinary citizens.
He urged the Federal Government to fast-track the National Peace Policy, establish a National Peace Investment Fund and legislate a minimum three per cent peacebuilding allocation across relevant MDAs.
He also called for a stronger coordination role for the IPCR and urged private companies to dedicate one per cent of their corporate social responsibility funds to peacebuilding.
“Peace is an enabler of profit,” Ochogwu said.
Also speaking, President of the Ufuk Dialogue Foundation, Emrah Ilgen, said Nigeria’s diversity should be treated as an asset rather than a source of division.
He said peacebuilding required investment in relationships and creating platforms where people with divergent views could engage in dialogue and find common ground.
The foundation, in partnership with the IPCR, honoured individuals, organisations and communities for their contributions to peace, reconciliation, humanitarian service, education and youth development.
Representing the Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, AIG Victor Olaiya said peace and democracy were inseparable, noting that both reinforced each other.
“Peace and democracy cannot be separated because they are mutually reinforcing,” he said.
Olaiya urged the award recipients to see the recognition as a fresh responsibility to continue promoting peace rather than an end to their efforts.
“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.
