As Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark International Day of Peace, the Commandant General of National Unity and Peace Corps, (NUPEC), Dr. Chinedu S. Nneji, has pleaded with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to grant assent to the National Unity and Peace Corps Bill, which will soon be legislated by the National Assembly and transmitted to him.
This is even as he called on all non-state actors in Nigeria such as Boko Haram, IPOB, Bandits, kidnappers and other criminal elements in the country to lay down their arms and embrace positive action, inaction and ambition for peace.
Dr Nneji who stated this at a briefing in Abuja on Thursday to celebrate the Day which was slated by United Nations every 21st September, said the need to have an agency responsible for peace in Nigeria cannot overemphasized for obvious reasons.
He said the existing security agencies are well over stretched due to the prevailing insecurity the land.
“We are also joining the United Nations and the rest of mankind to achieve this target action for peace and ambition for Global Goals through the instrumentality of National Unity and Peace Corps project,” he said.
With the 2023 theme: “Actions for Peace: Our Ambition for the Global Goals,” he said: “We need to apply our daily actions, planned actions and inspired actions and inactions with caution towards peace building, advocacy, justice, equal rights and fair play.”
He further said individual and collective ambitions whether positive or negative are also critical to the peaceful and non – peaceful society, saying, all hands must be on deck to achieve this because of the importance of peace to human progress and development.
He maintained that every sane society needs peace to develop, as it is a panacea for socio-economic and political developments.
“Therefore, for us to achieve a society devoid of conflicts, our actions must be positively inclined, otherwise, we will continue to build and grow non-state actors in our society inadvertently,” he said.
