By Friday Idachaba, Lokoja.

PASTORAL Resolve (PARE), a Non-Governmental Organisation working on Community Initiatives to Promote Peace (CIPP) Project has built capacity of 25 local leaders of control communities to address lingering conflicts affecting the various communities.

The Team Lead and facilitator of the programme, Mr Israel Okpe, Senior Program Officer with the Pastoral Resolve disclosed this at the end of the training on Monday in Ajaka, Igalamela-Odolu LGA of Kogi.

Okpe said the programme was organised by the CIPP with funding from USAID and support from Mercy Corps alongside other partners on the project including IMC, SCDDD and ARDA.

He said that the three-day Interest-Based Negotiation and Mediation (IBNM) training was aimed at promoting synergy among various stakeholders in addressing lingering conflicts affecting the various communities.

According to Okpe, the programme also aims to further improve the impact of CIPP and promote sustainability of negotiation and mediation skills among CIPP participants.

The training which spanned from Friday to Monday featured: Pencil Simulation, The Crocodile and the Elephant Game, Negotiation and mediation, Role of mediators, Mediation process and meaning of Alternative Dispute resolution.

Others are Characteristics of ADR, Introduction to the Seven Elements and Circle of Value, Mediation Role Play, Ladder of Understanding and Community Actions Plan.

One of the lead facilitators Mr Emmanuel shall, Mercy Corps Program Specialist, charged community members to always apply Mediation in resolving their disputes because it had the potential of helping both parties to improve their relationship as Mediation is largely future focused.

He emphasized the need for leaders to always think outside the box in handling sensitive disputes that might be difficult to resolve adding that leaders should ask the right questions to understand the dynamics of the conflict instead of dwelling on assumptions.

“Mediators should be neutral as neutrality helps parties in a conflict to build trust and confidence in him”, Shall said.

Buhari Abubakar one of the pastoralist leaders appreciated the efforts of CIPP for their support in providing the needed support for the community.

“We promise to use the tools acquired from the training in our daily activities because we believe in peace and development of every community because, without peace grazing activities will not be possible for us, we all need peace and development in our community”, he said.

Also speaking, Tahirudeen Yunusa Abdullahi, Community Leader from Ajaka, commended the CIPP for its efforts and particularly, for opportunity saying that with the training, the community could now resolve their disputes without resorting to jungle justice.

Abdullahi said the community members would no longer take laws into their hands or report disputes to the police station as the leaders now have full capacity of resolving disputes within the communities.

The programme, aside enhancing local leaders skills in resolving disputes, Women and Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) were also given opportunity to contribute their quota to promotion of peace and development in the community.

It is believed that peaceful coexistence and tranquility would reign in the communities as the training is expected to also improve synergy among various farmers and pastoralist communities. (Ends)

By Friday Idachaba, Lokoja.

Mrs Mofoluwaso Williams, Kogi State Coordinator of the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) has charged pregnant corps members to serve the nation as expected and stop using pregnancy as excuse to evade service.

The Coordinator who gave the charge in her paper titled: “Tackling emerging Challenges in Corps Administration through NYSC/Stakeholders” at the Kogi Annual 2023 Corps Employers Workshop in Lokoja.

Williams said “Pregnancy is not a disease” and urged employers and organisations not to allow corps members to use pregnancy as alibi to dodge their civic responsibilities to the nation.

She said, “every workplace has its own peculiar challenges, so is our various places of primary assignments where corps members are engaged for the one year mandatory service to their fatherland.

“Pregnancy is not a disease, therefore organisations should not allow corps members to use this as alibi in any form.

“Pregnant/nursing corps members who use pregnancy as alibi for absenteeism or rudeness to officers should not be tolerated”,she said.

The coordinator said that she was aware that employers have such challenges as absenteeism, laziness, rudeness and absconding.

According to her, there are situations where a corps member is usually absent from work without authorisation and even fails to report at his/her place of assignment or reports initially and takes off later.

“We also have lazy corps members who are not ready to work but wants to be paid for job not done or those who are not ready to do anything extra for the organisation.

“There are also toxic corps members,” who never see anything good in any other person except themselves. Such have anger issues and fight both their colleagues and other staff,” she said

Williams advised employers to take the engagement of corps members seriously and ensure that they assist them to develop themselves into qualitative, trusted and capable future leaders. (Ends)

Governorship candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kogi State, Senator Dino Melaye, has sued the state government over the legality of outrageous charges imposed on political parties by the signage agency in the state.

In a suit filed before the High Court of Kogi State, Lokoja division. on Tuesday, Melaye listed Governor Yahaya Bello, Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Attorney General of the State, Ministry of Lands and Urban Development and Kogi State Signage and Advertisement Agency as defendants.
In the motion on notice brought before the court, Melaye said Kogi state government and its organs lack the constitutional powers to harass or intimidate him and PDP to comply with its excessive rates.
He prayed the court for an injunction to restrain Kogi state government and its agencies from further demanding, enforcing, harassing or intimidating him and PDP to comply with the demand for payment for campaign advertisement pending the determination of the motion before the court.

Earlier in the week, Melaye said the high costs goes against section 88 of the Electoral Act.
The state government had declared that for any political party in the state to advertise, raise billboards, paste posters and other signages, it must make the payment of a whopping sum of N50 million deposit. Then, there is an N2 million price on each billboard that is mounted or erected within the territorial space of Kogi State.

“By the time we look at the available billboard we have already, we will have to pay over one billion naira, to advertise and promote our political party through signages across the state.

“Section 88 of the electoral act is very clear, that we are not permitted as a party or governorship candidate to spend more than one billion naira for our elections. So, if signages alone cost us N1 billion, then we will be committing an offence because we would have contravened the provisions of the Electoral Act,” he