• 13,000 terrorists neutralised in one year, violent deaths down 81% – Reps

The federal government is considering developing a national peace framework to confront the raging insecurity afflicting most parts of the country, Director-General of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Dr Joseph Ochogwu, has said.

Speaking in Abuja yesterday at a conference on peace and conflict resolution in Nigeria, organised by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation West Africa, Ochogwu said sustainable peace requires a shift from reactive security operations to preventive strategies that tackle the structural conditions that enable insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and communal violence to thrive.

In another development, the House of Representatives said security agencies neutralised over 13,000 terrorists in the past year, while violent deaths declined by 81 per cent since 2023.

Among others, over 124,000 fighters and their family members had surrendered since 2023, while 104,000 people had entered the Multinational Joint Task Force’s Safe Corridor programme.

Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu gave the figures at yesterday’s plenary during a motion seeking urgent intervention after the October 23, 2026 attack, sponsored by Mohammed Audu.

However, the lawmakers called for stronger intelligence gathering and proactive security measures following a recent deadly bandit attack on the Binnari community in Karim Lamido Local Council Area of Taraba State.

Focused on the theme, “Peace and Conflict Resolution in Nigeria: Rethinking Strategies for Sustainable Peace,” he stressed that Nigeria’s worsening insecurity would persist unless the government addressed the governance failures, economic inequalities, unresolved communal grievances and institutional weaknesses fueling violence across the country.

According to Ochogwu, the concentration of political and fiscal authority at the federal level, citizenship disputes, economic inequality, uneven development and institutional weaknesses are major fault lines that continue to undermine peace.

Among others, he warned that poverty, unemployment, inadequate infrastructure, high living costs and weak public services could erode public confidence in government and intensify competition over scarce resources, particularly when combined with exclusion, impunity and organised criminal activities.

Meanwhile, citing figures attributed to the European Union Agency for Asylum and Armed Conflict Location and Event Data on the recurring violence in Plateau State, he noted that 737 fatalities resulted from 282 security incidents between January 2024 and August 2025.

Earlier, the representative of Rosa Luxemburg Foundation-West Africa, Angela Odah, said kidnappers, bandits and criminal gangs had made communities across the country increasingly vulnerable, while repeated attacks had forced many rural residents in Northern Nigeria to spend years ininternally displaced persons’ camps.

Responding to the killings, the lawmakers called on the federal government to strengthen intelligence gathering and information sharing among security agencies operating in Plateau, Bauchi and Taraba states.

They also urged the North East Development Commission, the National Emergency Management Agency, the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, and other humanitarian organisations to assist affected families.