Between the 15th and 16th of June 2022, the Forum on Farmer-Herder Relations (FFARN) 'cum' SFCG conference was held in Abuja at the Wells Carlton Hotel, Asokoro. I have been a valued member of FFARN since inception. On the 15th of June, FFARN took stock of her activities so far (since 2017) when it was established as a forum of academics, practitioners and policy makers working towards the peaceful transformation of the farmer-herder conflict. FFARN members did their work at the conference with a view to making recommendations to the incoming administration in 2023 as regards what to do to mitigate conflict between farmers and herders.
About the Toolkit:
The Toolkit is labelled: 'Prepared for peace: A cross-cutting conflict transformation toolkit for conflict & violent extremism in Northern Nigeria'. I congratulate SFCG for employing the 'conflict transformation - CT' rather than the 'conflict resolution - CR' approach. I have a soft spot for the CT approach, the reasons why could detain us here...
The toolkit includes the three fields of practice: PVE, DDR and SPRR and the four sources of conflict: violent extremism, conflicts among farmers and herders, vigilantism & banditry. The seven objectives for developing the Toolkit are:
*Conflict Transformation
*Resilience
*Risk Management
*Disengagement
*Accountability
*Rehabilitation
*Reintegration
For a breakdown of the seven concepts above, please read the original text on SFCG's website. Lest I forget: A little bird told me that the Toolkit had such a strong influence on its audience that members of FFARN, who were earlier winding down and putting finishing touches to their White Paper on the Farmer-Herder crisis to the incoming government of Nigeria, said they were prepared to spend a few more days studying the contents of the newly launched Toolkit, with a view to incorporating relevant aspects of same into the method of formulating the White Paper/subsequent Policy Briefs! So you see, a good product like the Toolkit has no hiding place.
However, in my opinion, the Toolkit should be simplified for the Northern Nigeria audience, for which it is meant. This should entail translating the Toolkit into Hausa with pictorial illustration for the benefit of un-lettered citizens. The maximum number of pages for such a 'democratised' version should be four pages instead of the current English version of 102 pages! Once again, I congratulate SFCG for blazing the trail in the field of conflict transformation in Northern Nigeria.
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