This is the International Development Committee’s next session focusing on Nigeria. We have two panels today, and our first panel will be looking at local approaches to peacebuilding. I thank the witnesses for joining us. Could you introduce yourselves and talk about the work that you do that receives UK Government funding? Hamsatu, I will come to you first, because you have a big UK aid banner behind you. Introduce yourself and your organisation and explain why that banner is behind you, please.

My name is Hamsatu Allamin. I am the founder and executive director of the Allamin Foundation for Peace and Development. We are based in Maiduguri, in the extreme north-east of Nigeria. It is a local civil society organisation focused on education, gender, human rights and peacebuilding. In fact, all our interventions are human rights based and peace and survival centred. We work inclusively with all stakeholders in north-eastern Nigeria, following our being registered as a result of the—what do I call it?—voicelessness in north-eastern Nigeria in the context of the Boko Haram insurgency. The north-east is one of the most underdeveloped parts of Nigeria, in the sense that despite all those atrocities that are committed by both sides in the conflict, either by the Nigerian military or by the extremist Boko Haram, people just look at this as common. Nobody talks about it; nobody says anything. It is just a common thing. In the context of the conflict, over 1 million people have been displaced and there are a lot of survivors and victims. In fact, the communities of victims and survivors are growing by the day. Vulnerability is doubling. But in all of this, you will never hear the perspectives or the voices of victims and survivors, hence in my NGO we focus on victims and survivors of the conflict, and ungoverned space where nobody talks and nobody speaks about it for fear of retribution from either the almighty Nigerian military or the most vicious Boko Haram, because the perpetrators of the abuses in the context of the conflict are these two. We have focused on this as a women-led organisation. At my advanced age, I feel that this is a gap that nobody addresses. Not even international NGOs talk about human rights in the context of the conflicts, because of what I said earlier, so I now principally focus on that and have created an umbrella network of victims and survivors, with over 13 different social networks of victims and survivors, in different categories of vulnerability. In fact, that is what attracted—

Hamsatu, I don’t know whether you can still hear us, but your sound has gone, so it might be worth switching off the video and coming back. Could I move on to Saratu, please?

Thank you very much, ma’am. The Center for Civilians in Conflict is an organisation that prioritises civilian protection, and we do that in various tiers of intervention. One of the pillars where we go into communities to understand the drivers of the conflict is research. We do either deep or light-touch research to understand what the conflicts are, what the drivers are and how we can develop programmes that can then respond to the conflict. Advocacy is another pillar of our intervention. We go in and we advocate with community leaders, security sector leadership and, of course, the Government of Nigeria to explain why it is important to have civilian protection at the centre of all military and counter-insurgency operations. We also go in with training as part of our effort towards security sector reform, because we understand that in the military, there is the doctrine and very little is being done to practically put human rights approaches into military operations. For instance, when we do our training, one of the things we would ask security forces is, “Now that you understand what civilian protection is, how do you carry that out physically?” That could be using civilian silhouettes during their shooting ranges, because the regular conflict that we all know is now being fought in a highly populated environment and with civilians at the centre. We also acknowledge in CIVIC that civilians are not only beneficiaries but agents of their own protection, so when we go into communities, we try to prioritise resilience-building in civilians. We train them on understanding what some of the conflict drivers are and what the risks they would be exposed to are. We look inward to say, “What are the things you have been doing as a community before anyone came in, to protect yourselves?” We build on those approaches to help communities also better protect themselves and advocate for their own protection. In a nutshell, that is basically what we do. With the UK funding, one of the major things we are doing is to try to improve civilian protection outcomes by improving civil military co-ordination. In the past, we have had concerns that communities do not trust security forces, and that security forces do not understand communities, so we try to build dialogue platforms and community engagement platforms where communities and security forces would sit at the same table in a safe space where they can discuss issues that concern their protection and the risks that come as a result of some of these military operations.

Thank you. I have not heard the expression, “agents of their own protection,” in relation to civilians. As we see more civilians being targeted, I think that is a really powerful statement, and the work you do is really powerful. Hamsatu, I am glad that you are back with us again. I just wanted to say that I think you were very modest in your introduction of your organisation, because you founded it, and you do some brave and remarkable work. Thank you very much for what you do. Aisha, can you tell us about your organisation, your role in it, and how you work with the UK?

Good afternoon. I am Aisha Abdurrahman. I work in the capacity of executive director for the Bridge for Women Development Initiative. BOWDI is a women-led organisation. It was founded by a young woman way back in 2012—and it was registered in 2014—who is very passionate about women and girls, when the insurgency was at its peak. She took it on after seeing the huge gap, where her peers were in difficult situations with nowhere to go and nothing to fall back on. Knowing the magnitude of risk when it comes to women and girls, she took it upon herself to see what difference and change she can bring on board, to some extent to provide a cushion or a kind of hope for younger women. BOWDI currently works with women and girls. We push against and try to close gender gaps and shift from short-term relief towards sustainable recovery for women and girls. We bring empowerment and we build resilience. A project that we are currently working on with the funding from FCDO is on empowerment and GBV protection concerns, where we address GBV issues. We do case management, psychosocial support and we currently have safe spaces across four to five locations. For now, those are the basic things that we are doing with the funding from the FCDO. Also, a component of the project is vocational skills; we are providing vocational skills to women and girls, so they will be able to sustain themselves even beyond the project’s life cycle.

Hello Hamsatu. I don’t know whether you recall, but we met in Abuja, along with my colleague James, who is also here with us this afternoon. We had a discussion there about why people join the extremist or bandit groups, but, for the benefit of the wider Committee, could you just say why you think people are joining those groups?

Sorry, the internet cut off, so I missed you and couldn’t tell you what I do precisely, even with the UK funding. So briefly, before I answer your question directly, I said that all our work is on victims and survivors centres; we have 13 different social networks of victims and survivors, with more than 42,000 registered members. During one Wilton Park meeting in 2020, all the Governments were there, talking about the resources from the international community to fund the reintegration of these ex-combatants. In fact, we were the only organisation that spoke about victims and survivors. As a result, the FCDO, through the British high commission in Nigeria, said that, although we are a small civil society organisation, we had to be brought onboard because I advocated about transitional justice. Transitional justice comes in the context of a conflict situation, but we have a peculiar situation where the conflict is still going on—the war is still going on. Other parts of the conflict are surrendering and putting down their arms, while grievances are being generated across the society. Those grievances are not only against the extremists, but even against Government forces and the Government itself from the communities. We were funded by the FCDO to start mobilising stakeholders towards a transitional initiative, where we gathered all stakeholders and undertook a perception survey across all of them to understand their perceptions and their conditions for peace and their impact. We brought in a different perspective of who—

Oh no!

Saratu, perhaps I can ask you a question while we are trying to get Hamsatu back. Will reduced UN and UK funding to Nigeria have an impact on extremism and instability?

Yes, a reduction in the funding for interventions would, of course, have a huge impact on all the efforts that have been put in place to reduce the current crisis. What that would entail, in essence, is that there would be fewer partners in communities where the most vulnerable populations are residing. Of course, the needs continue to grow, so with fewer partners to respond, that would impact negatively on the current efforts that we have put in place. For instance, CIVIC operates in three states in the north-east, and we have a total of 450 community volunteers in the communities, who then support communities with risk monitoring and conflict assessment. In itself, that is not enough to go around, so imagine when there is a funding cut; I do not think we would be able to do much. As it is, we are doing as much as we can, but funding cuts would negatively impact all the progress and the efforts that have been put in place.

There has been a recent significant intervention by the United States in Nigeria. What impact has that had on the situation in terms of instability?

There are reports that there has been considerable success, but there continue to be pockets of attacks. In the last 10 or 11 days, there have been over 50 deaths associated with banditry and insurgency, about 85 people abducted and over 1,200 people facing secondary displacement. The support is positive, but the question remains, “Is this going to be part of the general ongoing strategy to curb insurgency and the ongoing conflict, or is it going to be a one-off intervention?” If it is a one-off intervention, I do not see it as sustainable. There have been some reports of success, but there is a mixed perception from the communities. We live in a time of misinformation, disinformation and very wrong information getting into the wrong hands. Communities are concerned about whether the airstrikes jointly being carried out by the US and Nigerian Governments are a one-off thing, and if not, how long they will be happening. One of the narratives we are trying to push is that, when such an effort has been put in place, communities need to be carried along, because they need to understand how long this would be going on and what the impact would be on their everyday lives.

Hamsatu, can you hear us?

Yes. The internet is terrible on my side.

I think you were going to tell us why you think people join extremist and bandit groups.

There are several reasons. One is by force—by commission and then omission. One is abduction. Sometimes, the level of protection is very low. We are living in the poorest situations, so when a vulnerable group of men and women are not protected, they can easily be abducted by force and then join. For several others too, their family is in the mainstream group of insurgency. When you are born into that group, you naturally belong there, and then you do not know anything but what you are born into and brought up in. There is joining by marriage, too. In our context, marriage is very expensive, particularly for men. For girls, when their families could not afford it, girls are easily married off to anybody who can kidnap them, so that the family can take off the burden of catering for her. Another reason is security. Security has got to a level where those who are saddled with the responsibility of protecting us cannot even protect themselves. We see the security actors themselves forwarding victims into the hands of insurgents, because it is better for people. People feel invigorated and more comfortable aligning themselves with the other group, so that at least they can cope. Whether that is logical or not, that is another issue. It is so that they can be in the protection of the insurgents themselves. Another reason why people join is that they see it as empowerment. In the extremist enclave, for example, there are things that the reality of the world has yet to reach. In fact, in the extremist world, a child, no matter how small—for example, a 13-year-old boy—will come and tell us that he has two wives in the bush, while in our own society, even a mature person from the age of 20 to 27 can hardly get the resources to marry. By joining the extremists, that boy has the leverage of getting any number of women. In fact, young men—13-year-olds—are coming to tell us that what they are missing in the Nigerian context is the lack of social intimacy, or marriages at that early age. That is kind of forbidden in our context, while in the extremist world it is allowed. Joining an extremist group now gives you a licence to take any number of women you want and then be comfortable. There is the empowerment aspect of it also: the extremists do not care if you are a woman or a man, or how old you are, so long as you are so committed to their ideology that you are able to kill your parents or even destroy your community, or whatever. To them, these are acts of bravery. Those things are instilled to them in the name of religion. So in a context where people lack basic knowledge of the religion that they wish to follow, whoever comes and offers them whatever in the name of religion is wholeheartedly welcome. Many of these communities, especially in the minority groups of Gamboru and others join to get a sense of belonging and a sense of empowerment—it is empowerment to them. Even the women will tell you, “I joined because I feel I am empowered. I feel I can change the world.” Yes, because at whatever age they can be given the arms, they can be trained and then given position and status in the community of the extremists. In our own context, even for someone like me—with my age and my literary education—there are so many spaces that are closed to me. It is not yet an open society. In fact, the spaces for even proper discussion of people like us, as women, is very limited, but in the extremists’ world these things are very liberal. Those are some of the things that entice many young people, especially women and the young ones, and even the children who have come back. In fact, they send the children viral videos of their cohorts in the bush dressed in new military uniforms, reading the Quran; the children say, “Oh mama, we have to go back to the bush because that is where religion happens.” In our context, such things—even the spaces for education—are not being well catered for. Children do not get ample opportunity to pursue their education, and women do not get ample opportunity for empowerment, for education or even for recognition. Those are some of the gaps that exist and push a lot of our men and women into the extremist enclave. To date, those kinds of things exist. For civil society activists like us, with funding from the FCDO, we started mobilising people to gather and develop policy recommendations and give them to Government. As we gather those recommendations, we now interact with a wide range of stakeholders. Even the Nigerian military, powerful as it is, tells me, “Mama, we, the military in Nigeria, are victims. We are the victims of your people who know the Boko Haram, see them and allow them to come to kill us without even alerting us.” Those are the factors that my people—the people of my society—look at: “When you people cannot protect yourselves, how can I align myself with you so that I can be killed? It is better for me to remain safe with the extremists rather than aligning with the military forces.” That is how the military now look at us, telling me that they are victims. Then the Boko Haram will tell me, “Mama, we are victims of your society’s injustice.” In this context, everybody claims to be a victim and this is how they are victims. We now bring them together to understand how they are victims, and to listen to each other. Then the British high commission in Nigeria, especially through its training to the Nigerian military on human security, now begin to take people like us to be part of the resource persons. I for one was given the portion of women, peace and security to handle in the training. In that way, we bring the reality to the faces of the Nigerian soldiers so that they can see, when under normal circumstances we could not have even dared to talk about it.

Thank you, that was very comprehensive. My colleague James will ask some more questions about women and girls.

Basically, in northern Nigeria the risk we face for women is GBV. When a woman is in a displaced environment—let’s say we have camps, and now the camps are closing, which is also a huge gap—we have huge risks coming up because those women have no protection whatsoever. Then we have high cases of GBV: molestations around the camp and violent extremism by different sects—the extremist sects and also some of the people who are trying to bring relief to them. We find out that those women are in a very severe, vulnerable situation, more than anyone else. Most times now, if we say, “If you don’t have shelter, as a woman, you sleep on the street, or you sleep outside without a shelter,” we can imagine the kind of risk that that brings. We have seen increasing numbers when it comes to rape cases. We have seen increasing numbers when it comes to health issues. We have seen different kinds of diseases when it comes to women and girls. These things are happening, most times, just because they are women and girls. The gender vulnerability that is attached to them specifically is one of the highest risks that we have been seeing within this crisis, from the onset until now. We know women have specific needs when it comes to their wellbeing. Some of them are pregnant when they come to these camps; some of them are just lactating. We also have adolescent girls who are out of school so have to resort, sometimes, to hawking, and then during that hawking you would see GBV happening to them on the street. We also have situations where you see transactional sex in those camps, so the risk around gender specific violence is very high during this crisis. Looking at it from the perspective of people working directly on the ground, with the increasing, different kinds of conflicts that we are having now, you cannot say, “This is the problem,” and you cannot say, “This is the specific kind of conflict we are going through in Nigeria.” One minute it is banditry; the other minute it is a bomb blast at one place or another, or abductions of women. When abductions happen in these roads you see that women and girls, when they are abducted, will be raped and they will be maltreated. Some of them, when they come back, are already pregnant. Some of them will never come back. It is very severe and dynamic when it comes to women and girls, and when it comes to dealing with this specific crisis that we are having in the north-east.

We have safe spaces across all the locations of intervention, where we give them access to basic needs when it comes to hygiene and health. We also do referrals to medical care. We give them case management, where a case manager would work with them, and, once that is done, we also give them psychosocial support at our safe spaces. Once we see you are stable enough, we give you empowerment: we train you on skills and give you basic literacy and numeracy for you to be able to carry on. For those young adults that we have, sometimes it is very difficult to categorise them because we have children who are now parents. She is still 14 or 16, but she is now a mother, and she should have access, normally, to education and she should be able to have her basic needs met. Her basic needs are more like half-adult and half-child, so it is very dicey. We do have second chance education, where we have been working with other partners. We take them back to school and find them a skill so that they will be able to sustain themselves, because we are now focusing more on sustainable recovery and social cohesion across our communities to build their local leadership skills, so that, whether we are there or not, they can use those skills to sustain themselves, their children and the community. We do that through nutrition activities and livelihood activities, and we also sometimes do it through protection activities, because when we talk about protection, all the other components fold under that. We try to give them those basic responses.

The benefits are very many. One of the things that we have seen in the past, and the reason why the Boko Haram insurgency expanded beyond what it is, is that within the communities we are in, children have more access to their mothers than their fathers, so some of the mothers condoned some of the activities that led to young people joining the insurgency. We understood that, but we also understood that conflict affects women and girls disproportionately. Oftentimes, women are on the receiving end, being the first responders, and they are the ones left to manage and deal with the aftermath of the conflict. That of course includes a reversal of roles. Women who were not initially taking care of homes and being heads of households are now being put as heads of their households. They have to go to the farm or the fishing unit to do that. We also understood that part of the challenge of women accessing a livelihood was of course exposure to the risk of being abducted when they go to the farms or to collect firewood. As part of all that learning, one of the things we have done in CIVIC is have what we call community protection committee members. They are volunteer committee members who have decided to support their communities in ensuring that they are safe. That group is made up of 50 people in the community, both men and women in equal numbers, but most of the successes we have recorded have been led specifically by women, because women have a lot to lose in this context. Women are given opportunities to lead these groups, lead conversations, lead advocacy visits to security forces and to Government stakeholders to advocate from that point—because they are the mothers and the sisters, and they are, in general, not only the present but the future foundation of communities. Carrying them along is key and a sustainable way of doing it. When you have women taking an active part in peacebuilding processes and in developing strategies that prevent or protect communities, you have very good intel. For instance, in one of our communities in Borno State—in Konduga, to be precise—after certain former fighters had surrendered, their families were relocated and reintegrated into one of the communities. In their normal activities, such as protection monitoring and risk identification, they identified that the community had a high number of children that were out of school. They then understood, based on the training they had, that those children would be soft targets for people who want to recruit minors for criminal use or for certain abuses, and they worked with partners that were providing educational support to ensure that those children were enrolled. In total, about 190 children were enrolled in school because of the efforts of some of the women community protection committee members we had. In the flood of 2024, which happened in Maiduguri as well, communities who could not access the temporary shelter in the camp ran into a community where we had our community-based protection committee members. It was the women who first identified that, “Oh, there are a number of people coming into our community. We don’t know what they are doing.” They went to engage the women from the other community, and asked where they were coming from. They got the information, came back and met the other group members. They said, “We may not have enough in the community, but we can immediately start supporting this community’s members.” They brought them into their homes, provided from whatever food they had and made sure they were not out there on the street, but had some kind of shelter. That then moved the community leaders to also support them, and to provide additional support. So, yes, having women as part of the peacebuilding process, and at the table when we discuss strategies to continue to keep civilians safe, is key.

Aisha, how can civil society organisations work with local people to develop an early-warning system for conflict and instability?

That is something we have been working on. Like most national organisations, we have a consolidated way of communicating. We have a co-ordination platform—we call it the civil society organisation platform—where we devise means to have more contact locally with indigenous people, which is what we sometimes prefer to call them. Usually, when we have programme—like the Propcom+ project we are doing with the FCDO—most of our staff, volunteers and social workers come from the community; they are community members. Whatever we do, we train them. We let them understand how things are done. We have communication with the leadership of the community. We work closely with the Government. We also work closely with the traditional rulers, youth-led organisations—or associations, as we could call them—and women’s associations across the community. That gives us an opening for communication. We have a 360° way of communicating: they communicate to us, and we communicate to them. They warn us when they see threats, and we warn them when we see threats. It is a collaborative way of working. It is not an independent way of working, where we say, “This is what we come with, and you just have to accept it.” No, it is, “This is what we are proposing. How do you see it, and where do you want us to channel this?” What are the problems? We sit down, find solutions together and then see a way forward. With early-warning signs, I can see improvement, especially after the floods last year. We realised that the communication was kind of porous. We are now working on that by training people to see that certain signs bring certain things, especially when it comes to climate change. We are doing a lot of messaging when it comes to climate change. We are teaching people how to work with gadgets. We also ensure that we do not keep information to ourselves. Being a national NGO, we have information coming from international NGOs and from UN organisations. We also have more contact from Government, so we have a lot of head information. With the established structures that we have in the localities, we ensure that we communicate to say, “These are the ABC signs that we think will come. It would be good if you do this,” or, “What do you think you would do? What system have you put in place? Where do you want us to support you?” Those, for us, are ways of working with the localities.

Thank you. We are doing a parallel inquiry on women, peace and security, and everything the three of you have said confirms to me that women and girls need to be at the centre of early warning, but also any solution when it comes to securing lasting peace. Thank you so much for all that you do daily, and for being such excellent witnesses—we really appreciate it. Thank you very much for your time. Hopefully, we will keep in contact and the report we do will do justice to the work you do on the ground. Witnesses: Tog Gang, Senior Advisor for Peace and Conflict, Mercy Corps; and Bryan Weiner, Senior Regional Programme Manager – West Africa, Search for Common Ground.

We will now shift to our second panel. This one will focus on national and regional instability across Nigeria. We are very lucky to have two panellists, Bryan and Tog. Thank you both. Could you start by introducing yourselves and your organisations? I will start with you, Bryan.

Hello, everyone. My name is Bryan Weiner. I am a senior regional programme manager with Search for Common Ground, which is one of the largest dedicated peacebuilding organisations in the world. We work in more than 35 countries, and our primary mission is preventing violent conflict. We have been in Nigeria for a little bit more than 20 years. We started in 2004, addressing some of the core conflicts in Nigeria, from the Niger Delta insurgency to farmer-herder conflict and inter-religious conflict in the middle belt, and also working in north-east Nigeria. Thank you very much, and I am very glad to be here with everyone.

Thank you. We are grateful that you have made the time. Tog, could you introduce yourself and Mercy Corps? Also, could you briefly describe the security situation in Nigeria as you see it now?

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here. I hope you can hear me loud and clear. I am a senior conflict and peace adviser with Mercy Corps, supporting our technical teams across the world. I am currently based out of Nigeria. I have been working with Mercy Corps since 2013, when it started its programmes in Nigeria. Basically, the work we have been doing over the years is promoting peacebuilding, delivering emergency assistance and supporting communities to strengthen economic resilience. Our core outcome areas in Nigeria focus on economic opportunities, food insecurity, peace and good governance, and water security, to ensure that our citizens are empowered, engaged, resilient and secure. We also do work across the Sahel to strengthen inclusive, locally led justice systems, natural resource management and conflict management to reduce violence, bolster resilience to conflict shocks and rebuild trust between citizens and the state. Just to give a conflict profile of what we are experiencing currently in Nigeria, I would focus on northern Nigeria. At this time, Nigeria is experiencing several conflicts driven by multiple issues and factors that have led to loss of life and also the loss of livelihoods for millions of Nigerians across the region. Those issues include ideological differences, natural resource management, political grievances, and the criminality and banditry we are seeing in north-west Nigeria. There are several other factors, whether it is climate change, the failure of Government to address these issues or just the lack of opportunities for several groups across the region, that have contributed to the situation we find ourselves in.

Thank you. That is really clear. This inquiry is very much focused on Nigeria and how the UK is supporting Nigeria. Should we actually be looking more broadly at the region, particularly when it comes to security?

Yes. It is important to look beyond Nigeria. When this conflict started, it seemed to be highly localised, but it has changed in dynamics over time. We are seeing an infiltration of different groups across the Sahel. We are seeing the impacts of climate change also affecting this conflict. Then there are issues of forced migration. These are not issues that Nigeria alone deals with. They are very much issues that we see manifested similarly across the region. It will require a more strategic and co-ordinated approach to deal with this conflict more holistically. We are already beginning to see that in terms of countries or nations coming together to tackle the security challenges that we face today, but there is still so much that needs to be done if we are to address the root causes of this conflict.

To address the root causes, do we need to look more broadly than just Nigeria, and is it possible, with development work, to address them?

As I mentioned, saying that development work alone will be able to address the root causes might be far-fetched. We need to work as a team, and that requires a committed response, with security, Government and development actors. What we have struggled with over time is commitment from all those individual actors to work together, share information and begin to address the root causes together, understanding that it is a shared problem that needs to be addressed by all of us. It is also about understanding that conflict does not lie in isolation, and we are seeing how these conflicts have gradually flowed into other locations in this region. A lot of work needs to be done. However, with conversations like this one happening, and having such stakeholders in the room, I think we can develop a clear path to begin to address this more sustainably.

Thank you. That is very clear. Bryan, you were nodding along to much of what Tog was saying. Could you tell us a little about how Search for Common Ground works to reduce the instability in Nigeria?

Yes. I agree with a lot of what Tog was saying. A lot of those factors and causes are international and regional, but they are also deeply local, and deeply locally rooted. At Search for Common Ground, we use a variety of approaches. We are an international organisation, but we work very closely at the local level. One of our key processes, particularly in Nigeria, is that we have worked through peace architecture. We have established different levels of peacebuilding and conflict-transformation platforms at the community, LGA and state levels to look at what the localised root causes of these conflicts are and how we can address them. How can they be addressed at the community level, and where do we then need to have that higher level of interaction? Where does it need to be escalated to—to the LGA level or the state level—to have higher-level security responses? We have done a lot of different work. That is at the root of our methodology, but we have expanded beyond that. We have a number of projects ongoing, where we are working on freedom of religion or belief, and we have done a lot of case management. When we get alerts of religious violations, we provide legal or case management support. We have had a number of early-warning or early-response projects across the region. Of course, we also do a lot on conflict assessment and conflict analysis in areas across the region. Search for Common Ground really got its start as a media organisation, so we recognise the power of the media. That might be traditional media—radio and television—but we are now also doing a lot around the digital media space and social media to look at the causes and how we can address them in a more holistic manner. Our focus is still at grassroots level, at community level, recognising that that is one part of the solution. A lot of the conflict can be addressed locally, at grassroots level, but it also needs political solutions, as a lot of the drivers of it are much broader.

Thank you very much. Are any of the UN or UK aid cuts affecting your organisation, Bryan?

UN and UK aid cuts have not directly affected us—

Good.

But US aid cuts did affect us quite significantly.

Tog, can I put the same question to you?

I will just echo what Bryan said. Yes, the US cuts affected us significantly. For example, within the country, we had several peacebuilding programmes, but at the moment we have only one. That is focusing on transitional justice approaches in the north-west. Unfortunately, the budget cuts hit us quite hard, including in our humanitarian programming in the north-east and the peacebuilding work I mentioned. A lot of that had to be scaled back or stopped immediately. And unfortunately for us, we did have significant funding for small-town WASH implementation. That was stopped abruptly as well, but we were able to get some private donor funding, to allow us to at least complete the construction of that infrastructure in the BAY states in north-eastern Nigeria and in parts of the south-east.

Hopefully, the US Government will realise the important work that you do and turn that around, particularly as the President seems to be interested in security in Nigeria. I will hand over to my colleague Brian.

Tog, how important is Nigeria to regional stability?

Great question. Not only is Nigeria an economic powerhouse in the region; we also have a sizeable population. God forbid that any major humanitarian crisis should hit Nigeria again, but it would have a significant impact on the neighbouring countries and maybe across Africa as well. So it is important that Governments like the UK, the US and other partners watch Nigeria quite closely, in terms of security but also issues about building our economy and ensuring that individuals or citizens have economic opportunities to progress and diversify their livelihoods. These are the root causes that affect the stability of the region or contribute to the instability that Nigeria is currently facing. Our Government have been unable to address this independently, so it is important that Nigeria’s problem is viewed more as a regional problem and maybe even a global problem, as against focusing on it as a problem that affects only this state.

To follow on from that, to what extent are Nigerian stability and security compromised by instability in the wider region, including in Sudan?

In terms of Nigeria—these are unofficial reports—we are seeing movement of groups along that corridor as well. They are forming into terrorist groups or organisations, or forming linkages to terrorist groups, from those locations as well. This has been a major force. These groups come with various grievances against the state as well, and they are able to capitalise on at-risk Nigerian citizens, who bear similar grievances against the Nigerian Government. That forms an easy route for the recruitment of Nigerians into these armed groups. That is part of the reason why we have seen so many groups springing up in Nigeria recently. We think of the IS and a few other groups like Boko Haram, but there are a lot of splinter groups operating in a lot of ungoverned spaces across Nigeria, and the Nigerian Government is still unable to grapple with that situation as it stands.

Can I ask a related question? Has there been any thought about Nigeria playing a role, maybe with the African Union, in dealing with the bigger problem in Sudan—the terrible war that is happening there?

I do not know of any conversations that Nigeria is currently engaged in with the African Union on the situation in Sudan. I would need to get back to you on that. Q69        Brian Mathew: Okay, thank you. Bryan, can I ask you—one Brian to another Bryan—what assessment you have made of the potential for displacement of Nigerians arising from the current instability?

We are seeing large levels of displacement across the country in many areas. I first moved to Nigeria in 2018 and lived there from 2018 through early 2025, and the major displacement area was in north-east Nigeria. But now we are seeing displacement across the middle belt, in Benue state and significantly in north-west Nigeria. I think the displacement crisis was never resolved in north-east Nigeria—there is still a lot of displacement in north-east Nigeria, even as there was a technical closure of the camps there a few years ago—but it has become a crisis across the country. Q70        Brian Mathew: How might this add to instability across the whole region?

Similar to a lot of what Tog said, there is a significant regional factor. There is the instability in the Sahel countries and the AES countries that is spilling over into Nigeria, but ultimately a big part of the instability comes from the lack of opportunities, from grievances and from unaddressed problems. The more displacement there is in a country, the greater those drivers towards joining armed groups are going to be. You have people—youth particularly—living in IDP camps, in situations of displacement, with the inability to get education, and there is a lack of jobs and a lack of opportunities. They then become very easy targets for recruitment. I think you are going to see a continuing cycle. With more instability and more displacement, you are going to have greater drivers and root causes that are going to continue this problem.

Bryan, how much of a role does religion play in the conflict and instability across Nigeria?

That has been a big topic, which has been talked about a lot lately. The way we look at it is that, yes, of course religion does play a role, but it is not the root cause; it is not the driver of the conflict. There is a lot of tendency to paint the situation in very black and white terms, in that everything comes down to religion and it is a religious conflict. But what we have seen over and over again, even in the middle belt, and even in the Boko Haram crisis, is that religion is not the root cause. In many ways and in many situations, it is how the conflict is being framed, particularly in the middle belt. It is being framed in religious terms and people are using religion as a form of expression in the conflict. But at its core, it is not the root cause of the conflict. I was head of office in Maiduguri for two and a half years, and even in the Boko Haram crisis—we worked a bit with youth who had been separated from Boko Haram—we would hear over and over again that the drivers of joining Boko Haram are not passionate religious extremism. That is the same with banditry groups; even though a lot of times they frame themselves as committing jihad, the core drivers are lack of opportunities, lack of jobs, poor governance and multifaceted challenges. That even goes back to climate change and natural resource conflicts that are creating those challenges. In the way we have looked at it, yes, religion is a strong factor; you cannot deny that, especially with what is going on right now in the middle belt. There are Christian communities who feel very targeted as Christian communities, and there have been cycles of religious conflict in Nigeria. But what has been tending upwards lately is the oversimplification of this as a purely religious conflict, or that there is Christian persecution or a Christian genocide, as some people are saying. We feel and have seen that that oversimplification does not address the root causes, and also risks making the conflict more religious than it necessarily is, because then you have given that framing and term, so it is very easy to allow the conflict to be exacerbated on religious terms.

What sort of work do you do to reduce religious tensions?

We have done a lot of work. At one point, we had a series of five different complementary projects on freedom of religion or belief. One of the big parts of those projects was that we worked on inter-faith groups. We established inter-faith networks in recent projects in Plateau state, Kaduna state and Bauchi state. We worked very closely with the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council—NIREC—across the country. The idea is bringing religious leaders from different faiths together to jointly address conflicts in communities, and to take the religious fervour and power out of them. We have had some good successes in that, and through some of our work we have been able to prevent lynching or mob violence related to religion. There are a lot of different ways of addressing that. We have also worked on providing legal and case management support to people who are victims of religious violence.

Tog, what is your perception of the reports or statements on persecution against Christians in Nigeria? Do you agree with Bryan’s analysis?

I do agree with it. However, Nigeria has its own challenges when it comes to issues of religious tolerance. As Nigerians, we need to do more. Obviously, we need to see more action from our Government and see them acknowledging that this could potentially push Nigeria into deeper and more complicated conflicts, which we are already experiencing. We acknowledge that, being a very diverse, multi-ethnic society, it is very easy for people who benefit from conflict to use religion as a tool to perpetuate violence. We acknowledge that. Our Government need to do more to raise awareness that that is happening or has the potential to spiral out of control, and to take concrete action to bring to account people who use it as a tool for personal interest. As Bryan said, however, it is too simplistic to say that Nigeria is experiencing religious conflict. If you look at the demographics of Nigeria, at the population, there are more people collaborating and living across religious lines than people who are polarised. That rhetoric or narrative has the potential to cause much more damage to an already fragile situation, so I think that more support externally and internally is needed to change the narrative, while also backing it up with action. Mercy Corps has implemented a few inter-religious peacebuilding programmes in the past. We have brought in religious leaders to counter the narratives that discourage religious tolerance and harmony. We have them come together to engage in dialogue on misrepresentation or misinterpretation of some of the scriptures that we find in the most dominant religions in Nigeria. We also have them come together to share joint projects, which continue to promote religious harmony. When Mercy Corps came to Nigeria in 2013, we had counterpart funding for religious funding that worked side by side with funding from the UK, under a programme entitled CONCUR, not just to work on the economic or structural factors that exacerbated the farmer-herder conflict, but to begin to discuss the narrative that that conflict is religious. We also recorded a lot of success in building religious harmony in the local communities that we worked in.

Thank you.

Very interesting, thank you.

A few years ago, I implemented a programme with Search for Common Ground in the North East part of Nigeria—in Adamawa state, to be precise—and, early on, we conducted a study to understand whether communities understood the role that climate change was playing in the conflicts that they were experiencing and continued to experience. The findings were significant where communities felt that it was a hoax. Part of our approach was to work with such communities on them understanding the linkages and the role that climate plays in driving conflict. We looked at the pathways by which climate can easily manifest into violence in their communities. We are currently working with communities across Nigeria, and hopefully in the Sahel, to develop community-driven tools that will allow community members to conduct the analysis on their own and to reach an understanding of the role that climate plays and the roles that they can contribute to mitigate the effects of climate change. That could be as simple as climate adaptation strategies or changing their livelihood options in those locations. If we look at the pathways, whether that is the economic issues, migration or natural resource competition, I would say all the major conflicts that we experience in Nigeria show those linkages in how climate is exacerbating the current tensions that we face across northern Nigeria. However, there is insufficient funding and support from stakeholders at various levels to begin to finance these types of locally led interventions, which will allow communities to push these interventions and find solutions that work for them. We are hopeful that with little efforts, with Mercy Corps and our partners, we can provide evidence-driven interventions that can begin to show that it is possible for communities to play a leading role in resolving these conflicts or addressing climate shocks.

One of the challenges we have faced from the budget cuts is that we no longer have up-to-date information on displacement figures. For example, Bryan mentioned earlier that there is huge displacement, even in the central part of Nigeria. At this time, we are not sure of the precise figures for people who have been displaced as a result of this conflict that has affected farming and herding communities. A lot of those people—

Tog, can I interrupt? Why, because of funding cuts, are you no longer getting that information?

A lot of the donor organisations had to abruptly end their programmes. Whether it is data on migration figures or data on incidents that are happening in the communities—Search for Common Ground has been working in local communities—a lot of the data that the Government was dependent on came from the NGOs.

Wow.

When the NGOs are no longer functioning, that information is no longer up to date. I think that the last displacement figures we have for the north-east came sometime in October 2024, and we are already in 2026. The figures for the north-east are placed at around 2.2 million people displaced. However, we know that the numbers are significantly higher, especially when we see the conflicts that are raging in the Sahel and the migratory patterns that we are experiencing across those regions.

Yes. On that, a big part of our work is on farmer-herder conflict and land resources. That is really tied to climate change, even though it is a bit more on the macro level and is also related to population. There are traditional nomadic herding groups who, because of desertification, are getting pushed further and further south into the Sahel, into more populated farming bands. That is triggering a lot of this conflict, which has then become framed in religious terms because the herders are often Muslim and the farmers—at least in some regions of Nigeria—are primarily Christian. In the past, it was kind of a complementary process where farmers could only farm in a certain season, and the herders would come through and the cattle would eat the leftovers of the farms and leave their droppings, which were then fertiliser for the next year’s planting season. Now, with newer technology, there is a year-round farming season and there is less need for the herders. These are all factors at play in one of the most volatile conflicts in Nigeria, particularly in the middle belt and in Adamawa. We worked on that quite a bit. We had a four-year project called COMITAS in Adamawa and Taraba states that was EU-funded. It worked on addressing and mitigating that farmer-herder conflict and was able to, at least in one of the core volatile bands of Adamawa state, significantly reduce farmer-herder incidents. But it is a broad conflict that will only get worse with climate change and as herders are pushed further south. It is something that needs both grassroots-level support but also broader political-level support. A lot of the violence and conflict that is happening in Nigeria is in some ways related to these different patterns. So our main natural resource conflict has been around farmer-herder conflict. We have also done work on natural resource conflict related to fishermen, and a bit in the Niger Delta region as well on conflict related to oil extraction and natural resource extraction.

The core model is the same. Obviously the issues are different, but the core model on one level, the community-level peacebuilding, is critical and is important because a lot of the issues can be resolved at the community level. But that also needs to be complemented by higher-level political action and Government action. In the case of farmer-herder conflicts, how can you get the political will to come up with a more appropriate solution to address the farmer-herder conflicts? With that, we set up a structure called the Forum for Farmer and Herder Relations, which is now no longer directly connected to us, but is ongoing and is looking at what policies can be put in place to address this from a political level. In the Niger Delta and the oil-related conflict, you can resolve community-level conflicts, but when one of the core conflict drivers is large oil companies causing environmental destruction, you also need to engage at a higher level. The relative structure is pretty much the same: community-level engagement complemented by higher-level political engagement.

It is sustainable, but, like so many peacebuilding efforts, it is kind of a drop in the bucket. A lot of times, peacebuilding gets very limited amounts of funding and projects that are very short term, and a lot of these require long-term work, long-term investments and long-term political engagement. It is sustainable and it works, but it requires commitment. It is not necessarily an easy, quick solution. It requires support to civil society actors, peacebuilding actors and INGOs. It also requires bilateral engagement, Government-to-Government engagement, and work with the private sector as well. As we know, climate change is a major issue affecting the work. I do not think it is any more or less complex in Nigeria. Of course, Nigeria is not faced with some of the extinction-level concerns that countries such as Tuvalu or some small island nations are facing, but Nigeria is experiencing flooding; there have been increasingly severe flooding incidents. It is a complex situation. I think this approach could work, but it needs more dedicated efforts at all levels—with civil society organisations and INGOs such as Mercy Corps, Search and those that spoke earlier, and also with companies and Governments.

That moves us nicely to localisation. I have a few questions for you both, but I will start with Tog. What support do local organisations need to better engage with international donors?

Thanks for that question. At Mercy Corps, we invest a lot in localisation. Some of the tools and processes that we have developed for that are designed to strengthen the abilities and capacities to lead the process for change. We believe in equitable partnerships. That has been a centrepiece of our localisation approach and is one of the workstreams that we have pushed for. That means having a commitment to the partnership between us as an organisation and the communities, towards a common goal. Equitable partnerships need to be based on mutually beneficial outcomes, and they must ensure that each of us is accountable to each other. There is a myth: we have passed the stage of saying that they are unable to challenge, channel or lead the change that they want to see. We believe in providing those capacities so that the communities themselves identify the needs. We have had several instances when we have brought in local community leaders and authorities to help us in the design of our implementation to ensure it is tailored and meets the needs of the communities where this will be implemented. It is important that, through our localisation approach, the community’s voice is heard, seen and felt right there in the communities. As development partners, leaders or NGOs, we need to invest in inclusive advocacy. That means that we provide the environment and leadership, using our influence to guide the communities and let them advocate for the change. This has been a very rewarding experience for us at Mercy Corps, because it has allowed us to reflect, go back and learn that sometimes these approaches might not be the most appropriate or the most timely. That allows us to go back and make those changes. One of the things that we continue to advocate is that, as we pursue our localisation approach with our communities and stakeholders, our donors and funders provide us with a listening ear to make our programme much more adaptive to the changes that we see on the ground. Where there is the impact or risk of climate change, or the evolving conflicts that we see in the communities, it is important that we continue to adapt. Localisation allows us to do that.

Bryan, can you set out how your organisation works with local organisations to develop early-warning systems?

Localisation is a core part of Search’s work, and we take a holistic approach to it. Yes, we work with local civil society organisations and build their capacity—that is a core part of it. What we do specifically around early warning is to develop structures—the peace architecture structures that I was talking about earlier—that comprise local actors. We either develop structures or work with existing structures. If there is an existing structure, we don’t want to recreate the wheel and do something completely different. We work with those structures and support them on early warning and early response. Then, our goal, especially when we are getting towards the second half of a project, when we know that funding will end, is, “How can we ensure that those structures are able to continue operating on their own?” That has been a big part of what we do; we help structures get registered as local civil society entities, help them register with the Corporate Affairs Commission, and try to build up a space or a structure that allows them to continue their own fundraising and continue their own work. We have had a lot of successes; a lot of structures have continued—of course, not all of them have continued—and have been able to continue to do early warning and early response work. Two of the big peacebuilding agencies are the Plateau Peace Building Agency and the Kaduna peacebuilding agency, and I know that Search for Common Ground was closely involved with them in the early days. It is one of those things where, if we can partner again with those structures we have created in future projects, we always try to do that, but we are happy to see structures that we have supported continue on their own, and we are happy to share our tools and resources. If people are using our methodologies and tools, we consider that a success. That is one of our big approaches to localisation, and it has worked particularly well with our EWAR platforms. EWAR structures have to be locally led and locally run, otherwise they are not going to be active.

Thank you. Going back to Tog, how do you think the UK could improve its model on localisation engagement across Nigeria?

With the UK, I see that the new approach is to work more closely with Governments. That is important. We have examples of where this localisation approach has worked, with UK funding in Mali for our JASS programme, where we have used that support, or that intervention, to enhance the capacities of land commissions or natural resource management committees from the Government to begin to lead the development of their communities. That is one entry point, as well, to begin to understand how to make localisation more effective. I also think that the UK should prioritise evidence-based programming, to find out what works and doesn’t work within the communities. The UK has done a good job of doing that. I know that, in the past, we received UK funding to conduct mediation work using insider mediators from our communities to resolve local disputes using a combination of our approaches. That meant using an interest-based mediation approach while integrating some traditional approaches to mediation as well. That approach has been effective across northern Nigeria; we have worked in numerous states. I think, with UK funding back then, we were working in four states in the middle belt. It is important that we begin to intensify those kinds of traditional or community-led approaches to prevention, but also the management of disputes locally. Those are the things that come to mind for now.

Thank you. On that, Bryan, what does the UK do well, or maybe not so well, in its approach to reducing instability across Nigeria?

This is an area where Search has not had direct funding from the UK recently, but we are just starting involvement with a big project called Propcom+. We have been involved a little bit in the SPRING project as well. What I have seen, and really like, are projects that combine a conflict element with a natural resource management element—large, long-term, consortium-focused projects that look at all the different causes. Of course, instability is a complex situation, and Search for Common Ground is very specifically a conflict transformation and peacebuilding organisation. We do not do humanitarian or development work, but we like to partner on these big consortium projects, because you cannot address one issue without the other. You cannot address farming inputs and agriculture in a context where there is significant insecurity without also having a peacebuilding and security-instability component. You also cannot do a purely peacebuilding intervention in a place where people have severe food security and development needs. That is what I have noticed in the projects that I am aware of and that we have been connected to—that they are multifaceted projects that address a lot of the core context in Nigeria. That is what I can say on that.

Do you think that the UK pays enough attention to the holistic approach that you have highlighted?

Yes, I think so—it is hard to say in depth. I know that there have been some budgetary constraints. From our experience with Propcom, I know that there was discussion that we would be involved earlier, but then there was kind of a limited budget, and of course, when there is a budget constraint, the peace and security section is often the first to go. There is definitely a need for more focus and more funding, but the sense I get from the projects I have been associated with is that it is taking a good approach.

Thank you both for your answers.

Thank you, gentlemen. You have given us loads of evidence and presented it really clearly—thank you for that. The work you do is fabulous, and I hope that the most recent round of funding cuts coming from the UK do not land too harshly. Thank you for keeping going in a very difficult global financial situation. We need you, and we need the work that you do.