In Yobe, MCN trains Traditional Rulers, resolves 9,221 conflicts

Stakeholders in Yobe state are asking emirate councils faced with crisis in their states to re-introduce the Traditional Justice System so as to mitigate the increasing number of conflicts.

This was part of the resolutions reached during policy dialogue on strengthening traditional justice system in the Northeast held in Damaturu, Yobe state capital.

The traditional justice system which is also known as informal sector commonly found in the rural communities plays a vital role in settling conflicts if properly adopted at an early stage.

The European Union (EU) Managing Conflicts in the Northeast Nigeria (MCN), state team leader, Sambo Abdulkadir, said over 640 Traditional Rulers were trained, across four emirate councils in Yobe state, while 9,221 conflicts were resolved between February 2018 and November, 2020 through the alternative dispute resolution.

“There is the need to strengthen the capacity of the traditional institutions so that they can manage some of the cases without necessarily allowing their people to go to courts, that was why we were able to resolve over 9,000 cases across Bade, Fika, Damaturu and Pataskum emirates,” he said.

The consultant of the MCN, Aminu Inusa Mohammed, also explained that the idea was to train them on alternative disputes resolution, conflict management prevention while the policy dialogue was to consolidate on the achievements recorded so far.

It is believed that the North-eastern states that are bedeviled with boko haram crisis and other crimes, the alternative system when adopted across other states of the region would reduce the escalation of conflicts.

Leave a Reply