...As the world marks the 2026 International Day of Peace, the question for Nigeria is not whether peace is desirable but whether we are prepared to pay for it.
By S. Oteh
Every year on September 21, Nigeria joins the global community in observing the International Day of Peace. Every year, the ritual is familiar: statements are issued, prayers are offered, and the day passes. But this year’s theme “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day” demands something more than ceremony. It demands an honest reckoning with what peace actually costs, and whether Nigeria is willing to pay that price.
The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, captured the essence of the moment when he observed that “achieving peace is not passive or automatic. It’s an active and deliberate choice to invest in a better future”. Peace, in other words, is not a condition that simply prevails in the absence of violence. It is a structure that must be built, maintained, and financed much like any other public good.
This year’s observance honours the “everyday architects of peace” volunteers, advocates, civil society leaders, and peacemakers who are bridging divides and building peace from the ground up. These are not the generals or the diplomats whose names dominate headlines. They are the mediators who sit between feuding families, the women who detect early signs of communal tension, the youth leaders who choose dialogue over reprisal. Their work is unglamorous, underfunded, and indispensable.
What Nigeria Has to Show
Nigeria has no shortage of such architects. In Kaduna State, forty-five Christian and Muslim women and girls recently completed training in peacebuilding, mediation, and community dialogue in Kasuwan Magani a community with a history of inter-communal violence. The training, supported by the Interfaith Mediation Centre, produced an 85 per cent improvement in participants’ mediation knowledge and led to the formation of a Women Peace Ambassadors Network capable of managing rumours, mediating disputes, and identifying early warning signs of conflict.
In Nasarawa State, a community-led dialogue process supported by Search for Common Ground brought an end to a decade-long leadership dispute in Koya Community a conflict that had resisted the efforts of traditional rulers, government authorities, and religious leaders for years.
In Benue State, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue facilitated a landmark Natural Resource Peace Agreement between ten community groups, addressing the resource-based tensions that have fuelled violence across the Middle Belt.
These are not isolated success stories. They are evidence of a broader truth: that Nigeria’s security challenges banditry, kidnapping, communal violence, farmer-herder conflicts cannot be resolved by kinetic means alone. They require a parallel investment in the mediators, the early warning monitors, and the community engagement officers who prevent disputes from becoming crimes.
The Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) has made this argument forcefully in the lead-up to this year’s observance. Its Director-General, Dr Joseph Ochogwu, noted that in 2024, global military expenditure crossed $2.4 trillion, while peacebuilding spending remained below $60 billion barely 2.5 per cent of the total. “We fund the bullet,” he said, “but not the conversation”. The IPCR has called for the establishment of a National Peace Investment Fund and a legislated minimum of three per cent peacebuilding allocation across relevant ministries, departments, and agencies.
It is a compelling case. And it is one that the Nigerian Mediation Service Corps (NMSC) has been making, in practice, for nearly four decades.
A Corps Built for This Moment
The NMSC has not always borne its present name. Its origins lie with the volunteer members of the Nigerian Peace Corps, who served under the banner of The Mediators a movement inspired by the vision of Professor Humphrey Ogoegbunam, who established the National Unity and Peace Corps (NUPEC) in 1987 with a mission of mediating in crisis situations and fostering national cohesion.
Over the years, the organisation passed through institutional transitions, emerging today as the Nigerian Mediation Service Corps a body of approximately 40,400 trained volunteers across all 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. Its members are schooled in conflict transformation, mediation, early warning systems, and community engagement. Their training draws on an institutional heritage that includes proven mediation roles during the Ife-Modakeke and Tiv-Jukun crises.
This is the kind of “everyday architecture” that the UN theme celebrates. But the NMSC’s contribution is not merely historical. Its existing structures state-level commands in every state, a national coordinating framework, and a land endowment of 100 hectares in Ile-Ife bequeathed by His Imperial Majesty, the Ooni of Ife, for a national training institute constitute a ready-made asset for the community engagement and alternative dispute resolution components of the emerging State Police Services.
The Corps has made clear that it seeks to serve as the integral offshoot of those structures not as an external partner, but as the organic, community-facing component from which the new policing architecture’s engagement capacity can be constituted.
Honouring Those Who Serve
No reflection on peace in Nigeria would be complete without acknowledging those who put their lives on the line to keep it. On this International Day of Peace, we honour the men and women of the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigerian Army, the Department of State Services, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, and all others who serve in harm’s way. Nigeria’s peacekeeping record more than 200,000 military and police personnel contributed to 41 peace support missions since the 1960s is a source of national pride and a testament to the professionalism of our security institutions.
We particularly commend the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Olatunji Rilwan Disu, whose leadership has brought a renewed emphasis on community-oriented policing. The inauguration of a Committee on State Policing, the strengthening of community partnerships, and the Force’s continued participation in international peacekeeping operations all reflect a philosophy that places citizens at the centre of security. The IGP himself has argued that “preventing conflicts is more cost-effective and sustainable than responding to crises after violence has erupted”. It is a position that the NMSC wholeheartedly shares.
An Investment, Not an Expense
The theme of this year’s International Day of Peace invites Nigerians to see peace not as an abstract ideal but as a practical investment. That investment takes many forms: supporting community mediation networks, strengthening early warning systems, funding peacebuilding institutions, and building the human capacity required to resolve disputes before they escalate.
To the Federal Government, we encourage continued boldness in the ongoing security sector reforms including the proposed establishment of state police and the work of the Presidential Working Group on the National Policing Bill. These are historic steps toward a more responsive and accountable policing system.
To state governments, we offer a simple proposition: the community engagement component of your new police services need not be built from scratch. The NMSC’s trained volunteers, state-level structures, and training infrastructure are available to serve.
To our fellow Nigerians, we say: peace is not the work of government alone. It is the work of every citizen, every family, every community, and every institution. Invest in peace by choosing dialogue over violence. Invest in peace by resolving disputes through mediation rather than retaliation. Invest in peace by supporting the security agencies with information, cooperation, and trust. Invest in peace by building communities where every Nigerian regardless of ethnicity, religion, or region feels a sense of belonging.
The Work Continues
The NMSC renews its commitment to mediate in disputes before they escalate, to monitor community tensions and share early warnings with security agencies, to build bridges between the police and the communities they serve, and to train a new generation of peacebuilders through its national training institute.
Peace is not built in a day. It is not built by one institution. It is built by all of us, in small ways, every day.
“Peace is an investment. Let us all invest in it for everyone, everywhere, every day.”
S. Oteh is the Corps Public Relations Officer (CPRO) of the Nigerian Mediation Service Corps (NMSC), Abuja.
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