People’s orientation, outlook and attitude to peace contribute significantly to the scale of violent conflict, its management and sustaining a peaceful environment. So members of the Partners for Peace (P4P) Network invest a significant portion of their time working on improving people’s knowledge, attitude and practices about peace using various approaches.
Tamunomie Wariboko, a Network member from Okirika in River State was crowned a peace champion for his role in using football competition to end the conflict between two communities and ending cult clashes in Igbesikala-Ama. TRT World shared how he does this:
In March 2016, there was a land dispute between Tarikoro Polo and Setari Polo communities in the Port Harcourt area of Rivers State in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, resulting in a communal clash that led to the destruction of properties and injuries. Tarikoro Polo community wanted to use a piece of land that bordered the two communities to construct a new toilet but Setari Polo community objected, saying they were the rightful owners of the land.
Due to the disagreement, the elders of the communities started to use the youths to perpetrate violence among themselves and the unrest intensified as a result of the high unemployment rate in the communities. An arbitrating committee was created to look at the issue, but it did not work and efforts to end the conflict between the two communities and the cult clashes were futile. At the time, Wariboko was the youth chair of Tarikolo Polo.
Then in January 2017, the community leaders appointed Tamunomie Wariboko the CSO with a mandate to put an end to the dispute and cult clashes.
Wariboko had been a member of the Partners for Peace (P4P), a network of individuals and organizations under the peacebuilding program of the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) dedicated to reducing conflicts and promoting peace in the Niger Delta. He had attended several capacity-building workshops and the people saw him as the right person to put an end to the conflicts between the communities.
In an interview with TRT World, the peace actor narrated that it was in the course of participating in P4P training, he had the idea to catalyze his undertaking to resolve the long-standing conflict through a football competition. In his testimony, Wariboko said the agenda was not just about engaging the youths with a football competition but to stage a forum during the competition, for advising the youths to embrace peace, enlighten them on the drivers of conflict and encourage them to desist from fighting amongst themselves.
The 44-year-old proceeded to tell the leaders of rival groups in the two communities that he believes a football competition can serve as a substance for harmony that would bring the young men together and he would love to set up a sports tournament to unify them, and they agreed to set up their teams for the competition ahead. He involved the other six communities, who also took part in the football competition.
With the football competition, the dispute between the two communities and cult clashes ended. The communities have not had any communal clashes since. The youths now refuse being used as cannon fodder; the two communities agreed that the Tarikoro Polo community be allowed to construct a new toilet; hatred turned into harmony.
